Birth of a Warrior
by Jenthewarrior
Summary: The origin story of Michael Westen. Follow his troubled home life, his army training, his first interactions with figures like Larry, Tom Card, and Sam Axe, and his fiery romance with Fiona Glenanne. Follow him from the plains of South Africa to the snowy forests of Bosnia, from kidnappings to arms deals to assassinations, as he grows into a master spy, and into a legend.
1. Bartering

_A/N: Hello and welcome to my Burn Notice story. If you read my lackluster description you already know that this story will focus on the origins of Michael Westen and his path to becoming the man he was when the series started in 2006. On this journey, we will see his home life, his training in the army, his fateful first interactions with figures like Larry, Tom Card, Sam Axe, and Fiona Glenanne. I have tried to get this story as canon as I can with what I know about his past and what others have compiled, but some dates and scenarios have been changed, as sometimes there is conflicting information from the show about certain things in his past._

 _As with all of my stories, I will remain as true to character as possible, but also keep in mind that this story begins when Michael is only seventeen years old, and so the person that he is now is a little different from the man he will become._

 _I hope you enjoy this story, and this first chapter, which will be longer than most others. If you do enjoy it, please leave a review or comment. If you have any suggestions about where you think the story should go next or what characters you would like to see, feel free to message me or leave a review._

 _Jenthewarrior._

XxXxX

 **I. Bartering**

 _Miami, Florida._

 _1984._

When you grow up in a home dominated by an alcoholic, you take notice of certain things.

In my world, the first sign of trouble is no sign at all. On his worst days, when he finds himself between jobs with a bottle of whiskey, my dad becomes a really neat person. If he did something violent the night before, like break two of my ribs, he started caring what the neighbors think. He works hard at appearing likable – a more extreme version of my mother, who orders Christmas wreathes from catalogues but recycles coffee filters every morning.

When I look at my house, it's the tranquil lawn gnomes and the freshly planted daisies that give me the story for the day. I look for closed doors and carefully drawn curtains, and little signs of his trembling hands messing up something he was trying to fix.

Is the mailbox hanging open? Are there tire tracks in the grass? Did someone forget to take the trash to the curb? Is there a muffled baritone coming from the garage?

Sometimes the rest of my day hinged on the answers to those questions. Would it be better to sneak in through the back, or avoid the house altogether? Was it one of those surprise sleepover nights with Andre? Was it time to call the cops, or to play the mediator? Was dinner being served on the table, or being stolen from the store?

I listen for the hum of the Charger in the garage, or the whining of my dad's old stereo. He was a fan of yelling, so if the neighbors got curious he could just crank the music or rev the engine. He could pretend he was watching the game. If the cops came, he would recruit my mom to lie for him, and she did it with a smile every single time.

One day after I turned seventeen, all the signs were there.

I stopped at the edge of the driveway, staring at the little yellow corner of the flyswatter mom had pinned to inside of the kitchen blinds. It was a warning sign she had started using when I was ten. From here, I could count the empty beer cans in the trashcan. I could see the curtains, drawn so tightly shut that they almost seemed to be sewn together.

When I looked at my house, I felt the danger like a vibration in my chest. It lingered in the air like an odor, and it was ripe today. But I had something else on my mind, something that overpowered my aversion to my father.

I came in through the front, scanning for signs of trouble. Mom was the only one there, washing dishes, though she hadn't cooked in a while. I had a feeling she was just washing things from the cabinet to pass the time. Dad was in the living room, splayed out in his chair with a beer in his hand. I could see two trashcans from here, and each of them had three or four beers stacked on the top, and spilling over around the sides. Busy day.

Dad looked up when the door shut, but he was smashed, and I wasn't even sure he recognized me through the red veil over his eyes. I went straight for the kitchen, leaning against the counter to watch mom half-wash every plate and set it up to dry.

"I have to ask you something."

When I spoke, it was always a harsh contrast to my father's volume. He had no inside voice, but then again, neither did my brother. Sometimes it seemed that my mom and I were the only ones who could have a conversation like civilized human beings.

She glanced up, plucking her lipstick-stained cigarette out of her mouth and blowing a puff of smoke into the air. She was movie-star beautiful, with curly blonde hair and dark veins in her blue eyes, but was far from the helpless housewife portrayed in movies – she had a hard, frowning face and steel in her posture. We understood things about each other, about our situation, that my brother, or our neighbors, or our extended family, would never be able to understand. Our connection was something that forced me home every afternoon.

Or, it used to be.

She saw the change in me – she was observant, despite pretending to be ditsy and airheaded when the mood took her – and I caught the change in her demeanor. She popped her cigarette back in and carried on with her task, never dropping her scowl. "I take it I won't like it."

I gazed down at her hands. I was born when she was seventeen and she was only in her thirties now, but the hours she had spent biding time at this sink had taken a toll on her palms. I spoke without making eye contact. "I want to join the army."

Mom didn't seem surprised by that. In fact, she had dread in her face, like she had expected this all along. "I found the catalogues in your room. You need better hiding places, honey."

My lips twisted up on their own. I wasn't sure how she had gotten them out of the ceiling tiles, only that my mom was impossible to hide things from. It made me wonder if she had found my other stashes as well, and suddenly I felt that I was in the hot seat. "I don't know what you-"

"Relax," she said, flashing a smile for the first time. Oh, how she loved to see me squirm. "I heard you dragging a chair into your room last week. I figured it must be something good, to hide it in the ceiling. I suppose I was right." She took a hit of her cigarette, watching me thoughtfully. "So, the army, huh? Feeling patriotic all of the sudden?"

When I was twelve I told my mother I didn't want to live with her anymore. I told her I hated her, that I hated my father, and that she would be fine because she had another son. I went to the bus stop, bought a ticket for myself, and waited for midnight transportation to some city I had never heard of – I wasn't even sure if it would get me out of Florida. When my anger faded, and the prospect of leaving sunk in, Mom came and got me. She never mentioned it again, never rubbed it in my face, but it always stayed with us.

If I wanted to leave, I would. But I stayed. I let her lean on me. I took care of Nate. I dragged my father into bed on the weekends. I stole groceries and walked five miles at the crack of dawn to escort my brother to the front door of the school building.

I turned seventeen the day before, and suddenly, with that bland question she asked me, I realized why she had seemed so sad. She knew it was time for me to go, and this time I wasn't coming back.

"Four years in camouflage pants just to get away from us," she went on, her voice edging on bitter. She lit a new cigarette with her old one. "You could just get a job, Michael. You could move out and get yourself a house or something. Do what I did."

"So I could marry a drunk, have two kids, and wash plates all day?"

She flinched a little at the sharpness of my response, but I couldn't make myself apologize. Mom was not a delicate flower. She knew what was happening here. She skated over the comment. "I'll sign the papers, if that's what you want. You can put away the act."

I felt my jaw lock up. It closed around another biting remark. Instead of antagonizing her, I pulled the paper from my bag and set it on the counter. She signed hastily on her designated line, and lingered for a moment, looking at the 'father' box. I had thought about that, too.

"Were you going to forge his signature?" she wondered.

"I think that's a crime."

"That's never stopped you before – nothing stops you from getting what you want."

I leaned over the form, considering forging it right then and there. I didn't want my new career to start off with lie, so I left it blank.

"Or you could wait another year, Michael."

Since the army recruiter visited my school when I was thirteen, I was waiting for this moment, and the thought of holding off for another year made my stomach clench up. There was no way to say that to my mom, so I just waited, staring at the floor.

Mom blew out another puff of smoke, and it wreathed around me like a warm snake. "I'll ask him tonight." Her tone surprised me. She usually only spoke to Nate like that. Our relationship rarely called for a real 'mommy' voice. "Make sure your little brother takes a shower. If you could, try to get that car running again."

I stayed where I was for a moment, put off by her reaction, and then I brushed by her, putting a hand on her shoulder as I passed, "Yeah, Ma."

When I stepped out of the kitchen the hairs on the back of my neck stood up. Dad wasn't in the chair anymore, and I hadn't heard him move.

I had an internal radar of sorts, placing my dad in the room, in the house, in the neighborhood, so I can avoid him. When you live with someone like him, it can be helpful to keep yourself on the opposite side of the house, because in my case conflicts never came out good. Mom never took my side, and it was getting harder and harder to bite my tongue.

Nate squealed from the garage.

My brother was six years younger than me, and dedicated to irritating me in every feasible way, but hearing him scream was a trigger. If I was locked in a room with him for a day I would knock him out with the nearest heavy object, but if my dad put his hands on Nate, I couldn't force myself to remain passive. It wasn't in my nature.

Dad was twisting my brother's arm up against his back and watching him with that gleeful, red-eyed expression I had come to loathe. He was testing the kid, seeing if he would cry out again. It was one of the games he played with us when he was really smashed. He lived with the idea that real men could only be forged from pain.

He didn't waste time turning on me. He always heard me coming.

He released Nate and watched him scamper off into our mother's waiting arms, puckering his lips obnoxiously and bracing one hand on the Charger, almost tipping over as the haze of alcohol played tricks on his mind. He would remember none of this when morning came. It was almost better that way. It was better for him to be oblivious than to listen to him give Mom a soppy apology. If I could have forgotten, too, I would have.

"Well, look who blew in with the tumbleweeds," he said, a distinct southern drawl making his words sound like the calling card of a supervillain. He held out his other hand, inviting me closer. "Come 'ere, boy."

I stayed where I was. I didn't make a habit of getting within arm's length of my father.

"Go to bed, Dad," I said, keeping the venom out of my voice. I had to be as neutral as possible. Talking to him was like holding a lighter to a pool of gasoline.

He gave me a dangerous scowl. "Or _what_?"

Dad was over six feet tall, broad-shouldered and dense, and I could lift as many weights as I wanted at school and never stand a chance against him. His feverish eyes, his venomous tone, made me stumble back a step.

"I'm not… I just meant…"

"Stop that stuttering," he snapped. His expression was something I saw in my nightmares. When he got his hands on this much alcohol, he became something else entirely. "Never heard a _real_ man stutter. Say what you wanna say or shut the hell up."

I stepped back again, matching his step forward. Inside I was shaking, but outside I tried to look brave.

"Maddie, you better get your boy," Dad snarled at Mom.

Dad was hanging his jaw out like a piñata.

I was burning inside, my muscles coiled up with rage. I could have hit my dad. Andre and I played around after school, made a punching bag out of an old mattress. I had a mean right hook that got a nasty bully off my back in middle school and I was much bigger now. With him this drunk, with him standing there like that, practically asking me to hit him, the temptation rolled through me like a summer storm. It made every hair stand up, sprouted sweat on my neck, made my hands shake. I was so tired of listening to him talk, tired of having my life ruined by him, tired of Mom and her excuses, her meekness, and tired of hearing my little brother cry.

But I held myself back. I swallowed that anger, let it flash white hot through my insides until it simmered and gave way to my rational side. Mom would switch sides the moment I took action, shouting at me for hitting my father. It hurt to know that she wouldn't back me up, that I was isolated on one side of an equation, when all I wanted to do was help her and Nate.

It hurt to be along in a four-person household.

Just like the anger, I had to swallow the hurt, and deployed my greatest weapon against Dad. He may have been clever, in a cruel, charismatic sort of way, but I had intelligence on my side, not inherited, but honed. I spent my life trying to outsmart him, learning to lie to him and to my mother, and to the police. I spent my life manipulating my neighbors, my teachers, and even my friends to get through life, to get what I wanted. He was bigger, and he ruled my house, and he had Mom on his side, but as far as I was concerned I had the advantage. I was smarter.

"Do you want me to get you some more beer?"

Dad was pretty simple, and pretty complicated. His weakness, his vice, was alcohol, but he had a hard time keeping a job, so he had little money to spend on the thing he wanted the most. In his bad spells, he took what he could from us – he took the grocery money, our lunch money, and whatever my mother managed to save up. He invested it all in drinking, but he always wanted more.

He knew I could get more without being caught. He had tried stealing in the past but he always ended up in the drunk tank at the local station. I took it off of delivery trucks, gathered it from local refrigerators, and slipped it out of convenience stores in my pants.

I could hand him everything he wanted.

His eyes lit up at the question, and then narrowed as he realized I was diffusing the situation. He could either press on with his challenge, or give up, and reap the rewards.

He leaned heavily on the car, making the hood pop inward, and made a big show about considering my offer. Finally, he said, "Miller, none of that watered-down crap."

I felt a big lump dissolve in my stomach. Dad went to his workbench and started sorting his tools, paying no more mind to his family, and Mom ushered Nate into the house. She didn't even look back at me. She had no intention of thanking me for being the distraction, and she wouldn't ask me how I did it. She took it for granted.

When I was outside, with the garage door between my father and I, the angry buzzing of my pulse slowed down. I stood there for several second glaring at the thin slab of wood that separated us, and imagined myself going for that punch, how good it would feel to break my knuckles on his jaw. I also gave myself time to calm down, because being around Dad pumped me full of adrenaline and I looked like a junkie.

A very nice couple lived across the street from us – Mr. and Mrs. Reyes. Phil was a fan of Miller, like my dad, and he kept enough stocked that he wouldn't miss a few cans. They always left the back door unlocked because one of their nieces came over to walk the dog during the day. Even if it had been locked, I knew where they kept the keys.

Despite my long criminal record to say differently, I really hated stealing. It seemed wrong to take things from the Reyes family, because they had sheltered Nate and I when things got bad at the house. Stealing from faceless companies and stores was nothing to me, but stealing from people was harder. People had bills to pay and crappy families of their own to take care of. The Reyes' were no exception. I had known them my whole life. I had played T-ball with their nephews.

I could have taken it from the store down the road, or any of the little gas stations dotting Miami, but I wanted to get back to Dad as fast as I could. Mrs. Reyes might even understand if I explained it to her, but I would find a way to replace what I took before they noticed.

She had always been so nice to us.

I was thinking of her kindness when I stepped into the kitchen and found her leaning over a sheet of paper on the counter. She was crying. If I had been paying any attention to my surroundings, I would have heard her before I came in.

She looked up at me, and I saw the strangest thing in her eyes. It was the kind of grief my mother often expressed when she snuck out to smoke and sob in the backyard. It was the same desperation I was dealing with – a need to escape, a desire to start driving and never stop. I was caught off guard by it, so I didn't muster the excuse I had come up with.

I had nothing. I stood there like a jackass and stared at her, open-mouthed.

Mrs. Reyes sniffled and wiped her tears away, standing straight. "Oh, Michael. I'm sorry. I was just…" She glanced at the paper, and then stared out the kitchen window, trying to blink her tears away. "What do you need, sweetheart?"

She was my mother's age and smoked the same brand of cigarettes. She was an open, compassionate person, the kind of woman who would stop traffic on the highway to save a kitten, or shelter two kids from their dad for the night without notice, and without asking questions. She was the person my mom should have been, in an alternate reality, and when I was little I spent long hours sitting on her couch imagining that I was her son.

Seeing her cry was a stab in the heart.

But she had caught me in the middle of trying to steal from her fridge, so I had to stifle my immediate urge to run away and reconcile my desire to help. It was a situation I had no faced before, confusing and bizarre.

I wondered what, if anything, I could do for her.

"What's wrong?"

She smiled. Her only fault was her sweetness. I had learned years ago that too many heavy doses of hospitality, even from someone I thought so highly of, made me sick. It was something my mom and I agreed on, and maybe the reason I was born across the street.

"I'm fine. Do you need a place to stay tonight?"

I hesitated. Here I was, coming to steal from her, and she was offering me a bed for the night. "Um, no… I was just… Dad is out of beer, and I…"

Mrs. Reyes pulled three beers from the fridge and set them on the counter, and while she moving, I got a good look at the paper she had been crying over. It was a note written in slick cursive, and the last line stood out. _You're dead_.

"Who left you that?" I asked.

She snorted, balling the note up and tossing it into the trash. Her hand was trembling. She tried to play it off by rearranging some magnets on the fridge. "It's nothing."

I relented, but only with the intention of returning later to make sure she was alright. I didn't like to see nice people get hurt. It was one of the lessons my mother had imprinted from the beginning of my life. If you didn't put your hand out to everyone who fell on hard times, you were just as bad as the abuser, just as cruel as the oppressor, and just as guilty as the murderer.

Ironically, she did not live by her own advice.

"Thank you for these," I said, grabbing the beers and backing toward the door. I wasn't a big fan of charity, but the prospect of sleeping on her couch, where I would be safe until morning, was too much to pass up. "I can sleep over?"

"Phil won't mind. Bring Nate. If you come in after dark, try not to make a lot of noise."

I walked back with a new purpose. I still had the permission slip in the back of my mind, nagging me to put my father in a chokehold and force him to sign it, but Mrs. Reyes gave me something else to focus on. Solving problems – math problems, chemical equations, dinner plans – was a hobby of mine. Okay, it was my only hobby. Solving problems gave me an outlet for my frustration. There was nothing like mapping out the social hierarchy in your high school to make the rage ebb away. Instead of throwing punches and bullying like the other kids, I was being constructive. Still, my mother was convinced I should join a club or something.

We could call this little curiosity the 'or something.'

I gave my father his beer and watched him saunter back into the living room like a hotshot. Mom was still washing dishes and she hadn't even noticed me come back. I slipped out soundlessly, shutting myself into the garage to do battle with the decrepit Charger my father was 'fixing.'

Hours passed and the sun went down. Nate joined me after his shower, sitting in one of the jagged metal chairs in his superman pajama bottoms. He was, like me, not a big fan of being in the house after dark. Dad had some kind of supernatural connection with the moon. He was always angrier when it was nighttime, as if he thought his voice wouldn't carry in the darkness.

"Does it drive?" Nate asked me quietly. We were leaning on his bedtime, so he was a little out of it. He had his scrawny arms folded over the back of the chair.

I shrugged. "One day, maybe."

"Is Rebecca coming over today?"

Nate was in love with my girlfriend, and he was all kinds of annoying about it.

"No."

"Oh."

Seconds passed in silence, and then,

"Are you gonna join the army?"

I looked up, unable to hide my surprise. I wasn't going to tell him until I was halfway to basic training. I didn't want to deal with the waterworks. Surprisingly, he seemed calm and thoughtful. For once in his life he didn't babble about how selfish I was.

"Maybe," I responded. I wasn't a fan of definitive answers. Nate had a tendency to take everything as a promise. Being ambiguous with him was a requirement.

He let the answer roll off of him, looking back at the street. I had the garage door open. "Did you steal that beer from Mrs. Reyes?"

"She gave it to me."

"Why?"

I stepped back from the engine, wiping my hands on my shirt. I shrugged. "I don't know. I guess she was feeling charitable. Try to start the car."

Nate hopped up and slid into the driver's seat, turning the key aggressively. Nothing happened. He peeked his head out. "Mom says charity-"

"I know what she says." I ran my hands over my hair, forgetting for a moment that they were covered in grease. "It's more like a barter, anyway." I gauged his mood, and then ushered him out of the chair. "Let's go ahead over. I need you to keep them occupied. This should be enough," I motioned to the bruise forming on his arm.

"Why do I always have to be the distraction?"

"Because you're little, so people don't think you're up to anything."

"Should I cry?"

"If you cry, there's an omelet in it for you."

I walked him across the street, taking note of the dark vehicle parked just around the corner. It could have been nothing, but I knew for a fact that none of our neighbors drove expensive cars like that. I left my brother on the doorstep, knocked, and ducked behind the house.

Searching through trashcans is never glamorous, but sometimes you can find gems that make the rotting taco meat on your sleeves worth it. In an uptown neighborhood years ago, Andre and I had found a fully functional game system buried in a dumpster. I've learned to cloak my hands with plastic bags, to make gentle lunges to avoid impaling myself on sharp objects, and to avoid anything related to metal soda cans. It only takes a few soft crackles to alert someone to your activity, and I haven't found a good excuse for rooting around in the garbage.

My first objective was finding the note I had seen on her counter – it was already in my pocket. My second objective was to look for anything else out of the ordinary, like severed animal heads. So far I was arm-deep in normal trash on a chilly night in a quiet suburb, learning little more than how intolerant I was to the scent of rotting tuna fish sandwiches – a staple of Mrs. Reyes' diet.

I crept back into the house in the midst of my brother's scene, retreating to the bathroom with my backpack and changing my shirt. I still sort of smelled like trash, but spraying perfume on myself might be a little over the top. I sat on the edge of the tub to read the note in its entirety, that chill I had experienced earlier returning with a vengeance.

It was hastily written, with a few blobs of ink showing how hard the author was pressing his pen to the paper. He had torn through it in one place. It was addressed not to Mrs. Reyes, but to her husband, Phil, and it mentioned his name half a dozen times. I gathered that Phil had something he wasn't supposed to have, and that the person who had left this note really wanted it back. It had a lot of juicy one-liners about torture and revenge, but the part that really stuck with me was emphasized with a few jagged underlines.

 _This is the last warning._

I always thought it was eerie when my dad said that to me, so when I imagined Mrs. Reyes finding it on her front step and reading it for herself, I felt more than a little protective. Somebody was gunning for the couple who had saved my ass on many occasions. Their kindness toward me was not an obligation, but something they did because it was _right_ , and they were _good_. It would be nice to repay them before I split town for good.

I went back into the living room, smiling as I took in the scene. Nate was sitting beside Mrs. Reyes on the couch, eating from a plate of vanilla wafers and sipping on a full glass of milk. His face was red from his fake tears. He seemed very pleased with himself.

"Michael," Mrs. Reyes said, inviting me over with a wave of her hand. "Come sit down. You boys need to get some sleep. You have school in the morning."

I stayed where I was. Getting coddled was not my thing. "I should go tell my mom where we are."

"I called her earlier and told her. She thought it was a good idea."

"Of course she did," I responded, grateful my mom was so agreeable, but a little peeved she had ruined my excuse to leave the house. I scratched the back of my head, glancing around for a new story. "I have to… go get my notebook, to finish up my homework."

"You had homework over the weekend?"

"It's more like a project. Like a semester thing. A semester… project."

She narrowed her eyes a bit, obviously amused by my blatant lie. "You're a bad liar. But go on, do what you have to. I can't keep you here."

I nodded, smiling, and went back through the front door. Phil was on the porch with a Miller in his hand. I cringed when he cleared his throat. He shook the bottle, pursing his lips at it. "I swear when I left for work this morning I had at least three more of these."

"I'll get you more," I said, lingering at the top of the steps. "I just had to-"

"Save it. Just replace the ones you took."

Phil was not my biggest fan, but he was still a nice person. He was gruffer than his wife, a big, balding man who favored white tank tops despite the way they framed his gut. He reminded me a lot of a mobster with his thick northern accent. He had a soft spot for Nate, though, and it made me respect him. I figured he didn't like having a teenage boy around the house since his nieces stopped by so frequently. He thought I wanted to ravage them, and on a few occasions, I had.

"Yes, sir," I responded shortly.

I went back to my house, to the garage, and took a few firecrackers from the box I kept under the workbench. I milled around the neighborhood for a while, keeping watch on the area, looking for anything that fell outside of the normal patterns. Phil went inside early, so I took up his spot on the porch and listened for would-be assassins sneaking around in the bushes. The longer I waited, the more I thought the threat they had received would be carried out tonight.

I thought about calling the cops, but then I remembered that they weren't big fans of me, either. I had been arrested by almost everyone in the area, and I had a habit of overreacting when someone put their hands on me, even if that someone was just doing his job. I had whacked one of them in the nose when I was twelve and earned a reputation as a delinquent.

So I was on my own with four firecrackers and an old, cracked lighter. It would have been easier to just go to sleep, to let myself believe that nothing was wrong, or that nothing would happen that night, but I couldn't make myself go in. It wouldn't hurt anything to sit out here if I was wrong.

If I was right, the people inside could die.

It was almost four in the morning when I heard something down the road. It was that expensive car I had seen earlier. Someone started the engine and it rolled back into the shadows. I heard the door open, but I didn't hear it close.

 _Red flag_.

It took me ten seconds to get inside, make my case to the desk jockey who picked up my call, and arm myself with a knife from the kitchen. I hid behind the porch swing, crouching to stay out of sight. It was dark out, so anyone approaching from the glow of the street lights would not see me hiding here. A few sets of boots were coming toward the house, and one slipped into the backyard.

Someone cocked a gun.

Several things became evident to me in that moment. Phil had not borrowed a leaf blower and forgotten to give it back. It wasn't some teenager laving aggressive notes for the hell of it. Whatever he had in that house had attracted real danger. From the looks of it, he had gotten himself involved in nasty business. People who brought guns to residential neighborhoods in the middle of the night were not there to beat some sense into him.

They were there to kill him.

I really should have called the police sooner.

My heart started racing and I clutched the knife so hard the handle left an impression in my palm. It took me six tries to light the fuse on one of the firecrackers. I slung it into the bushes in the next house over. When it went off, the popping noise caused all the shadowy figures to stop in their tracks. I lit another and sent it flying onto the neighbor's front porch. It landed in the window frame and jumped up onto the glass, amplifying the sound.

Someone whistled in the yard. One of the figures was standing there, half-crouched with a gun in his hand. His head was cocked toward the other house, waiting.

I threw the last firecracker at the door the moment he relaxed.

For almost a full minute I watched the shadowy figure debate his options. If he thought the neighbors were aware of his presence, he had to imagine the cops getting a phone call. He had to be wondering if his little midnight excursion was going to land him in jail. He had to be wondering if it was worth the risk, even if the risk was miniscule.

Finally, he whistled again and waved his hand, calling his friends off. I sunk further into my hiding place as one passed right by the porch railing behind me. They congregated in the front.

But they weren't leaving.

They whispered something in another language – probably Spanish – and then the boots hit the front steps. I was wrong. He wasn't waving them off. He was bringing them together.

It was too late to run for it.

A steely hand clamped down on my arm and dragged me out into the open. Four flashlights clicked on and zeroed in on my face. I put my hand up to block the light, unable to see past it. Someone kicked me in the stomach, knocking the wind out of me, and two sets of hands nearly dislocated my shoulders forcing my arms behind my back, and wrenching the knife away. They put a cable tie around my hands.

Before I could scream out, a gag filled my mouth.

"I would hush, if I were you."

I knew that voice.

Pete was a local gangster and a former classmate of mine. He had forgone graduation to become a drug runner for a powerful Miami gang. I could never pronounce the Spanish name, but I knew it meant 'death squad.' He was standing in front of me with a silver gun pointed at my head.

He was smiling at me.

"Last time I saw you, you broke my arm." He stepped closer, pressing the tip of the gun to my forehead. It was cold. The metal bore into my skull. Pete locked his caveman jaw and grunted, "What are you doing here?"

I tried to talk through my gag.

Pete grabbed my hair, holding me up so I had to scramble to my knees to keep him from ripping my scalp off. He forced my head back at a harsh angle. "If I take this gag out, you're not gonna scream." He handed his gun off to another guy and pulled out a jagged knife. He put it to my ear. "I think you want both your ears, right, Mikey?"

I nodded.

He pulled the gag down so it hung like a scarf around my neck.

I gasped for air. "First tell me why _you're_ here."

His grip on my hair tightened. He scowled at me – it was the same scowl he had given me every day in algebra, like his hatred for me ran deeper than his hatred for the rest of the world. He had the same amount of patience for me that my dad did.

"I have the knife, and the team, Mikey. I'm asking the questions." He nodded to one of the other men and a steel-toed boot dug into my ribs. It hit the same spot Dad hit the night before. I tried to double over, but Pete held me up. He watched the pain sear into my expression. "Why are you here, Westen?"

I tried to keep breathing normally to slow my heartrate. It was impossible to think when the pain in my abdomen kept producing black dots. I could feel the broken ribs wiggling around inside, probing at my flesh, threatening to tear me apart. I was used to getting kicked, but this guy must have weighed three hundred pounds.

"I was stealing from the shed. Heard you coming."

Pete kept his voice low, but it was obvious that my presence was making him very angry. I could see the fire of violence in his eyes. "I think you're lying. What are you doing, helping Phil hide the money? Everybody needs a rat to hide the acorns."

"Squirrel."

"What?"

"I think you meant squirrel."

Pete released me, and within seconds of my slumping over, the boot came into my side again. It knocked me into the swing, sending it skirting backward. Unfortunately it made a soft sound that could have been attributed to a stray cat. I had no breath to cry out with. I pulled myself into a ball and tried to get the pain to ease up.

"I think you have a short life planned if you don't give me that money," Pete said, reclaiming his gun and pointing it at me. His hand shook slightly – I wasn't sure if it was because he had never shot anyone, or because he was so angry that the adrenaline was making him tremble.

He _looked_ ready to shoot me. I recognized the determination. I had seen it in my mother when she was ready to knock the crap out of Dad with a frying pan. It was a primal kind of preparation. It was the knowledge that you could never go back once the action was complete. It was the motivation to do it and face the consequences.

I tried to say something, but the massive guy who'd kicked me decided to start using his hands. He struck me in the jaw, and then punched the side of my face. The skin broke apart and blood dripped down to my lips.

"Wait, wait," I pleaded, shrinking away from another blow by the big guy. I spoke as quickly as I could, spitting out blood when it crowded my mouth. "I called the cops five minutes ago. Response time is seven minutes in this neighborhood. I would start running."

Pete wavered. I was staring at the tip of the gun, and it shimmered in his hand. "You're lying."

"You could wait and see. I'm sure they'd love to talk to you."

I was only half-bluffing, but the terror of the situation was threatening to overwhelm me. Pete only had to twitch his finger to end my life, or to maim me if his aim was off. I had no idea how much time had passed since I had made that phone call – three minutes or five? I was sure Pete would revel in killing me. I was sure he would take that risk, if he could still get away with it.

But sirens were going off in the distance. It was music to my ears for the first time in my life. Pete panicked and rabbited across the front yard, streaking toward the end of the road, where his drug-funded car was parked. He turned halfway there, looking frustrated.

He said nothing, but I filled it in with my own dialogue. _You're a dead man, Michael Westen_.

Every part of my body was throbbing, but I managed to twist myself around so I could kick the front door a few times. I couldn't get my hands out of the cable tie and I didn't want the cops to find me like this – all wrapped up and bloody on the porch of a house that wasn't mine.

Some lights popped on inside and the door flew open. Mrs. Reyes stood there in her nightgown, looking horrified as she took in my appearance, and the blue lights dazzling the other end of the street. She didn't seem to know what to think, but she fell down to my side and started fiddling with the restraints. "Michael, what on Earth happened? Who did this to you?"

"Get some scissors," I gasped, nodding toward the house. "Scissors." She ran for the kitchen and I rolled onto my knees, wobbling into the house. I used the doorframe to get to my feet, but I felt dizzy. Blood dripped to the floor, but I wasn't sure where it was coming from until it dotted my eyelashes. I had a nasty gash on my forehead.

I kicked the door shut behind me, almost falling as the pain took me off balance. I careened into the couch and leaned against the back of it, trying to keep the room from spinning.

Phil was coming down the hall, closing a plaid housecoat. Nate woke suddenly and rolled off the couch, doing battle with a fleece blanket until he could crawl to freedom. He staggered toward me, half-asleep and terrified. His first instinct was to find me when he was afraid.

"Is it Dad?" the kid asked.

I shook my head, pushing off the couch and stumbling into the kitchen. When I got to the sink, I spit blood into the drain. "No, not dad." I turned so Mrs. Reyes could cut the cable ties, and when I had my hands again, I reached up to assess the damage to my face. It wasn't an awful cut, but it was bleeding a lot. I probably _looked_ horrifying.

I pulled the gag off my neck and threw it into the trashcan.

"It was some guys," I went on, looking at Mrs. Reyes, but keeping her husband in my peripheral vision. I watched him stiffen up at those words. "They came out of nowhere and jumped me."

Mrs. Reyes put her hands on my face, dabbing a paper towel on the cut. "What guys?"

"Pete. He used to go to my school. He dropped out. I tried to keep them away. I called the police." I looked over at Phil, who had every reason to look as pale as he did. "Pete said you took money from him. How much did you take? Where is it?"

"I didn't take anything," Phil responded in a stutter.

"You look sick," Nate said, trying to drag me to the couch.

I pulled away from him and went to the back door, holding up my hand to Mrs. Reyes, who tried to follow me with that paper towel. "I can't stay. I can't go to the hospital."

"Sweetheart, you're hurt," Mrs. Reyes objected.

"You're bleeding," Nate whined.

"I can't stay for the cops. Go out and talk to them. Don't mention me."

"Michael, you have to tell them-"

"Make something up," I cut Mrs. Reyes off. I already had the back door open. I could hear the cops on the front porch. "I can't go to the hospital. I'm fine. Just get them to leave."

"But-"

"Can you please just trust me?"

She stared at me. Nate stared at me. Phil stared at the ground. Finally he pulled Nate into the living room and beckoned to his wife. "Let the boy go. We owe him that. Let me do the talking." He looked at me, tilting his head. "Hide in the shed. If they come in, climb into the rafters."

Phil had the same idea that I did. If he told the police why Pete was here, he would get himself arrested. If he even mentioned Pete, the police would look into their connection, and at this point I was pretty sure Phil had done something illegal. If anything, he made that clear to me by helping me hide. Phil didn't want to tell the police the truth – so what could he be hiding?

I went into the shed and climbed up into the rafters, hiding behind Christmas decorations. I could hear the soft sound of Phil and the police talking outside. He was explaining that some hooligans had come by trying to vandalize the house and that Nate had called the police because he was scared. He was selling it like he had been lying his entire life.

I sat back a little further when the police requested to take a look around, just to make sure the issue was resolved. I hit something hard with one hand and tried to identify it by touch.

It was cold, metal, and shaped like a rifle.

I would've thought nothing of it – my dad kept a shotgun in the closet – but as I felt around behind those boxes of lights and Styrofoam snowmen, I counted twenty different types of guns, some of them set in cases, some of them surrounded by boxes of bullets that rattled like maracas.

Phil had not stolen money from the gang – he had ripped them off.

And now I was his accomplice.


	2. Guardian

**Chapter 2: Guardian**

 _Miami, Florida._

 _1984._

I had been knocked out cold four times in my life, and regardless of how it happened, I always woke up with the same panic in my heart. It was a product of living with my father, a constant expectation that something was wrong. I liked to know where I was, to be in control of situations, to have an impact on the things that happened, not to just be someone things happened to.

But this time it was different.

I woke up with a face full of a frilly pillow case that smelled like gas station perfume, my chest aching in a steady rhythm, and a stiff feeling in my cheeks like mud had dried on my skin. I came into consciousness very slowly, first recognizing the sound of the wind dancing through the trees outside, and then the feeling of sunlight on my bare back. I opened my eyes to a white plaster wall and waited for it to stop pitching back and forth.

I was in the little back bedroom of the Reyes house, where Nate and I had spent many nights pretending we liked their nephew, Harvey, so we would have a viable excuse to sleep over. It was barely big enough to stand up in now, and as I heaved myself up onto my elbows I felt like a giant in a dollhouse.

Nate was standing in the doorway, holding my bookbag in one hand, with his strapped on his back. One side of his hair was sticking up and he looked ghastly, like he had hardly slept, but when our eyes met he gave me this perfect, gleeful smile.

"Good morning!"

"Nate," I groaned, flinching at his high voice. "You should be in school. What time is it?"

"Six-thirty. I got your bookbag, too." Nate set the bag down, and eased his off of his shoulders, coming over to help me sit up. He stared openly at the red and blue blotches forming along the contours of my ribs. "That looks really bad."

He was right. I looked terrible. Just sitting up added a weight to my spine that I had never felt before. I ran my fingers over my ribcage, prodding the tender, swollen flesh, marveling at the transformation. In a few days those red marks would be black. I also had a new streak across my stomach, a long, straight red line. It must have happened when I tried to get out of the rafters, when vertigo caught me and I slipped. It was the last thing I remembered from the night before.

Nate kept me balanced on the way to the bathroom, and sat outside fiddling with his bag while I tried to salvage what was left of my face.

I barely recognized myself in the mirror.

One of my cheeks was swollen, puckered along the top like I was storing acorns in there, and the gash on my forehead opened to reveal bright pink flesh just beyond the surface. Someone must have tried to wash the blood from my face, because it was faded, with only a few fresh streams trickling down to my chin, but they were too gentle. I wet my hands and scrubbed as hard as I could, grunting through the pain, until only the swelling and the cut were left. I could pull a cap down over my forehead, and claim the puffy cheek was from a bee sting.

Even though my face looked the worst, it my was chest that worried me. I was never a scrawny kid like Nate, instead set a little dense like Dad, with wiry muscle, but the flesh was puffed up now. It was hot to the touch, more painful each time I touched it. It looked like I had been hit by a car and backed over a few dozen times.

"Do you have to go to the hospital?" Nate asked.

I limped into the living room, grabbing my bag and smiling when I found a shirt Nate had packed. "No."

Nate buttoned my shirt for me because my eyes refused to focus on the teeny buttons. "We could skip school and go to the arcade instead."

"No."

There were two empty coffee cups on the table. Mr. and Mrs. Reyes must have had a long talk with the police – and with each other – the night before. I stuck my head under the faucet and gulped down as much water as I could without feeling sick, and Nate mimicked me.

I called my mom before we left, shuffling through Nate's backpack to make sure he had his inhaler. He was a mild asthmatic and he was very good at forgetting his medicine.

"Hello?"

She sounded rough. I imagined her night had been chaotic as well. She had to deal with Dad. I had it easy with the street thugs.

"Hey, ma, do you have Nate's inhaler?"

A concerned mother might have asked why she heard sirens and firecrackers the night before.

"It should be in the front pocket of his bookbag."

I unzipped the front pocket, mildly curious about the collection of twigs Nate had accumulated. His inhaler was buried under them. I put it in the main compartment and zipped it back up. "I got it. Do you need anything later?"

"Could you stop and get some milk? I left a coupon on the counter. I'm going to play bingo with Edna. Oh, and she wanted to know if you could walk her dogs. She left five dollars for you at the house. You could use that to buy the milk."

I wanted to say something to her, because I knew she had to be curious about what happened last night, or why my voice sounded like it did, but I held my tongue. If she asked later I would tell her, and if she didn't, she was probably better off not knowing.

"Got it. Bye."

I walked beside my brother on the five-mile journey to his middle school. I had started walking this path when I was a little over seven, when my dad screwed up the Charger and Mom became too ashamed to ask the neighbors for rides everywhere. She didn't let me do it because she trusted me, but because she had put it out of her mind. She knew I went to school, that I got there somehow, but she never wanted to know anything beyond that. It was her approach to parenting.

I had never let Nate walk by himself. He was airheaded and naïve, so the first van that rolled up offering free candy would win his favor. I also didn't like the idea of becoming my mother, so I took an active interest in the well-being of my brother, and of myself.

It took a while for my muscles to loosen up, but once they did the pain became tolerable. I walked in long strides, one hand wrapped tightly around my chest to keep the bones from shaking around and jarring each other. Nate walked in silence for once, perhaps aware, even subconsciously, that I was in no mood to listen to him whine. He meandered away from me, but whenever I swayed or missed a step, he was right beside me again, looking wide-eyed, like he was afraid I was going to collapse. I didn't like him to see me like this, but I had no choice.

I stopped across the street from the school, leaning against the pedestrian crossing sign. Nate lingered at my side for a little while. "Can I stay with you?"

"No."

"But you're hurt."

"It looks worse than it is. Go ahead. I'll pick you up later."

"But can't I just-?"

"No."

Nate's shoulders drooped as he walked up the front steps. I waited until he was inside, and then started toward my own school another half-mile up the road. I could have gotten there on time, but the motivation to sit at a desk all day and contemplate the Reyes situation was just not there. I gave up halfway and slumped against the base of a payphone outside of a convenience store. It was a rural area, bordered by one of the many teeny forests in Miami. I let my eyes slide shut.

It must have been an hour later that I stirred to the sound of tires spinning on gravel. The same fancy car I had seen sink into the shadows the night before – Pete's car – had just slid into the parking lot. He had found me already.

"Crap," I murmured, scrambling to my feet and staggering into the woods. I had even less energy than before, but the vines seemed to part to allow me passage.

Pete shouted my name.

"Can't you take a day off?" I shouted back, hooking my arm on a tree I had almost run face-first into. I tried to put on a little more speed, but my foot got caught in a root and I tumbled into a clearing. I was blinded momentarily by the pain in my chest.

Pete stepped into the open, holding that gun again. "I think I owe you a bullet, Michael."

I held up my hand, scrambling to get away. One of his guys came to my other side, huffing, and put his boot on my shoulder, pinning me with little effort.

"You should really change up your route, Mikey," Pete commented. He cocked his gun. "You're so predictable. I knew we'd find you on that road."

Pete looked like a gangster from an old cowboy movie, complete with a gray ascot tied around his neck and expensive boots clicking in the leaves. He was big and ugly, a former defensive lineman for my high school, with a jaw like Dad and stringy blonde hair that was rapidly disappearing. His new life had made him look more like a middle-aged man than a teenager, but he was young. He was my age, and not much bigger than me.

Our lives had taken drastically different turns.

"Wait, wait!" I struggled to get out from under the boot, prying at it. "Wait, wait, Pete. You wanted your money, right? Isn't that what you said last night?"

Pete sighed. "We went over this."

"You want your money, and I can get it for you. I can get you the money and the guns."

He cocked an eyebrow. "So can I."

"Are you really gonna storm a house loaded with that many guns? Guy's got booby traps all over the place. I saw him rigging up explosives, grenades, uh, tripwires. If you storm in there he's gonna put you all down."

"I think I can handle one old man."

"One old man with that many weapons? Do your guys wanna die?"

Pete glanced around, noting the uncertain looks on his friends' faces. "So you want to deal? Lay it out for me."

"Phil trusts me. I can get the weapons and the money for you. Nobody has to get hurt. I just want to walk away."

He was still holding the gun, but I was sure he was leaning toward my offer. He took a step closer, kicking up leaves, his expression dropping from hatred to morbid curiosity. "I always knew you were slimy, Mikey."

"Slimy and alive," I gasped.

"If you get me those guns by tomorrow morning, you can walk away." I almost let myself be relieved by that, but Pete advanced on me, thrusting the gun into my throat. "But if you're trying to pull something, trying to get the cops involved, I'll see how much damage I can do before they take me down. I know a sweet old lady and a little kid who rely on you. I wonder what their last words would be, Mikey. Aren't you curious?"

Every muscle in my body tensed up, but I did my best to control myself. I had learned that from my father. Reacting to his every taunt was what made it worse.

"If you hurt them, the deal's off. I can get you everything you want without anybody getting hurt. Just let me solve your problem, Pete. Leave my family out of it."

"Oh they'll be left out of it, as long as you deliver."

I watched them go, mystified by my own words. What had I gotten myself into? Did I expect Phil to hand over the merchandise he had stolen because I asked nicely? What did I expect to happen once Pete got those guns? Even if he left my family alone, he would probably kill Phil. Even if he found it in his heart to let Phil live, he would have a whole cache of weapons to play with. I thought about getting Pete arrested with the guns, or for beating the snot out of me, but I knew the gang would just send someone worse to collect the debt.

There had to be something they would care more about. If I could get them to drop this small issue in the interest of something greater, I could keep Pete from making a move on Phil.

I found my way to my feet again, stumbling around in the woods until I found houses. I took the road home, giving up on the thought of going to school. They would probably call the police at the sight of me, anyway. It was better to hug my bed for a while than to end up in the hospital with a huge bill hanging over my head.

It was quiet at home. Dad was snoring from the bedroom, but the door was shut. Mom had left the coupon for the milk on the counter, and a five dollar bill from Edna. My abdomen hurt just thinking about walking the woman's twin labs.

I stayed in the bathroom for a while, carefully peeling the scabs off my body to make myself look a little more decent. I took a short, painful shower and flopped into bed, hastily setting my alarm to pick Nate up from school. My eyes were heavy and before half an hour had passed, my mind started to wander in a dozen different directions.


	3. Negotiation

**A/N: Charlotte, after this story that is exactly what I intend to do. I actually started writing about their lives in Ireland following the end of the show, but I incorporated it into this story. So, in effect, this story will move from the past to the future.**

 **XxX**

 **Chapter 3: Negotiation**

 _Miami, Florida._

 _1984._

When I was twelve I caught Nate drawing on the side of the Charger with pink sidewalk chalk, and of course Dad poked his head into the garage the moment I snatched the chalk out of his hand. Nate was only six at the time, so I took the blame, and Dad and I ran laps around the neighborhood in the middle of the night as he tried to get his hands on me. I made it to a local grocery store, the Tigre Blanca, climbed the rickety ladder up to the roof, and threatened him with a brick every time he tried to climb up after me. It took him nearly thirty-six hours to talk me down, even when he was sober, and only because he brought Mom and Nate back with him. We all went for ice-cream inside afterward and acted like we were a normal family.

I still went back to the store every weekend to spend whatever money we had on groceries, and to steal the rest. One time the bagboy had caught me stealing and sent me home with a black eye, and one time Dad and I raced through the aisle like little kids and got the cops called on us. I had a mixture of good and bad memories at the store, so it seemed like the right place to go when my head was so jumbled up. It made me wish I was a kid again.

Andre showed up at dusk, when the sky was midnight blue and streaked with gray clouds. He blocked my view of it by stepping in front of me, a typical scowl on his face, his dark skin making his expression impossible to read in this light. He was bigger than me, the size of a linebacker and capable of deadlifting three hundred pounds like it was nothing. He dominated the wrestling team and sacked the crap out of opposing quarterbacks.

He took in my posture as I lay there like a broken egg, limbs sprawled out, ants crawling over my forearm, a sort of vacant expression, and snorted, "What happened to you?"

He dropped a six pack of beer beside me and sat cross-legged on the warm concrete, popping a can open and taking a long sip. Andre never talked much, and that was probably why I liked him. He took a crayon from me in kindergarten and I punched him in the mouth, and then we wrestled until the teacher pried us apart and banished us to separate corners. We revisited our feud on the playground, arriving as enemies and somehow leaving as best friends.

We got into a lot of trouble together, and even if we never had long, deep conversations, I knew more about Andre and he knew more about me than anyone.

So I just sat up, took a beer, and shrugged, "You remember Pete."

Before he dropped out of school, Pete had been the only guy who still tried to mess with us. He managed to knock Andre down and while he was gloating, I grabbed his arm and jammed it against an open door, breaking it in three places. He never forgave me for that.

Andre glanced over, an eyebrow cocked, and said, "He got a beef with you?"

I was frank with Andre, because he was the only one I could think of to give me advice. Mom was out of the question and my only other friends were more like acquaintances. Andre felt the same as me about the police – nobody listened to us and they were more likely to arrest Phil anyway.

He skipped over that part.

"We should talk to the Muerte, give them what they want."

 _Muerte_. So that was how it was pronounced. Just hearing it out loud gave me a chill. I had been approached when I was younger to join them, but Andre and I dusted up with the cops so much that they wanted nothing to do with us. Clean records, clean business. It was their motto.

He followed up with, "But it sounds personal, with Pete."

It was very personal, from the moment I met that ascot-wearing modern cowboy I knew I would always have a problem with him. He was the kind of guy I didn't want around my house, the kind of guy people subconsciously edged away from. I had no problem putting him in his place again, but this was about more than me.

"He threatened my family."

" _Man_ ," Andre muttered. I knew he wanted to add in a few things about where Pete could go and what he would do to him if he put a hand on my mom – because Mom had basically adopted Andre for months while his mother was away – but he stayed quiet. Her fumed, drinking his beer.

"He wants me to get him the guns, and the money – which I never saw, by the way." I wrapped my hands around the beer can, savoring the cold seeping into my palms. Beer was a social thing for me, not a means to an end. I had seen my dad do too many terrible things to think that being drunk was glamorous. Reality took the joy out of it.

Andre thought for a few minutes, and then said, "You know if Pete does something stupid, gets involved with the cops, he endangers the whole gang. Remember what they did to Bobby?"

I swatted a fly, suppressing a wave of disgust at the mention of Bobby. He was an okay guy before he got busted, before he cut a deal and walked out of jail, and never made it home. His story was touted every year to try and keep kids out of gangs.

"If he goes after you, if we get him arrested for it, the Muerte will spat him like a little gnat." Andre slapped his knee for emphasis. "You will be the last thing on his mind."

"Even if it worked, it doesn't help the Reyes family. If we give them back the guns and whatever else Phil took, they'll still come after him. Someone had to send Pete in the first place, and that someone sent him out there to _kill_ Phil already."

"Past talking," Andre agreed.

"But you're right about Pete. If I can get him to come after me in public, and get him arrested, the Muerte might decide to cut ties with him."

"Or cut off his head, and put it on a stake."

He threatened my family and beat the crap out of me, but I still hated the idea of getting Pete killed. It was his choice to join the Muerte, though, and now his life was in their hands. If the only way to get him to leave my family alone was to sick the Muerte on him, I had to do it.

"I gotta go talk to Phil, convince him to hand over what he took." I staggered to my feet, feeling better after lying down for a while.

Andre got up, too, and put his hand on my shoulder. "You look sick, Mikey."

"I'm fine. Can I borrow your bike?"

He tossed me the key to his bike lock, frowning, his bushy eyebrows drawing to the center of his forehead. "If you can stay on it."

"See you tomorrow."

I took the long way home.

It was dark by now. I wove in and out of the glow of street lamps, thinking about how I was going to solve this thing with Pete, and wondering how someone like Phil got involved with the Muerte.

When I turned onto my street, I kept to the shadows, watching my house from the Reyes' bushes. The garage was open and Dad has his head stuck in the engine of the charger. Nate was nearby spinning around on a stool, licking a popsicle. Mom was visible briefly in the kitchen window, but she disappeared and the blinds came down.

Confident that Mom was going to bed for the night, I strode across the street and set the bike up against the wall. Nate brightened, offering me a bite of the rocket pop melting down his arm.

Dad looked up, grease on his face, and scowled at me, "What happened to you?"

"I fell, it was nothing."

He grunted and went back to what he was doing – which was probably ruining the wiring some more. He liked to think of himself as a grease monkey, but his 'repairs' were questionable.

I changed my shirt, combed my hair, and tried to look presentable, adding every little edge I could to make myself more convincing. But when I walked over, the Reyes house was empty. It was dark and quiet inside, not even a candle lit.

One of the first things I learned about people was how unpredictable they were. Mom and Dad were my teachers. I knew that a man could wake up in the morning and be the perfect dad, take me to the park, swing me around by the arms, and that by the evening he could be throwing beer bottles at my head and telling me he never wanted kids. I knew that a woman could love me, and that we could watch television together all day when I was sick, and that she could make all the promises in the world and be the strongest person I thought I had ever met, but that she could also be stuck loving someone who hurt her.

I knew that not all gangsters were jerks, and not all old ladies were nice, and sometimes scrawny kids got the best of their adversaries in fights.

But I was still dumbfounded when I stepped into the master bedroom of the Reyes house.

It was empty, the bed perfectly made and the curtains pulled, but the drawers were all open. Someone had gone through them and strewn clothes everywhere. Mrs. Reyes' jewelry boxes were lying sideways. The whole place made me uneasy.

I went to the back, where the shed door was cracked open, and forced myself to stop. Curiosity could only take me so far. Last night I had discovered a whole cache of guns in the rafters of that shed and now it was sitting here, door cracked open, just asking me to go in. Had the guns already been moved? Were Mr. and Mrs. Reyes long gone? Or had the gang swung by and taken care of business? Was I already too late to help them?

My better judgement was telling me not to do it, but I went to the shed anyway, tapping the door to make it swing open.

Phil was sitting there in the half light, a saw-off shotgun resting across his knees. His tired eyes struck mine when I stepped inside. He did not looked surprised to see me.

"Phil. I was looking for you inside. We need to talk."

He studied me. His face seemed to have aged several years overnight. His usually perky gray mustache was limp against his greasy cheeks, and his hair was sticking up in the back. He had big purple bags under his sunken eyes and he wore a too-big Hawaiian shirt and bedroom slippers. His cargo shorts' pockets were filled with shotgun shells. He had a camouflage cap pulled down over his balding head and strapped around his chin, so he looked like an army grunt.

His appearance bore a shocking resemblance to my father after a bender.

When he finally spoke, his voice was gruff, "I forgot they were up there."

I knew what he was talking about, but I kept my mouth shut, suddenly realizing I might be in trouble. It had never occurred to me that Phil could be dangerous.

"When I sent you up there last night, I forgot about the guns, and that was my mistake." He ran one finger down the shotgun, dusting off a spider, and looked up into the rafters. It was too dark to see the crates full of weapons. "You should go to the hospital, Michael. I'm sorry for what happened… Just forget about all of this."

I wanted to be afraid, and I wanted to back out of the shed and agree with him, but I got the sense that Phil was just as unnerved as I was. I sat down on a box of Christmas decorations, cupping my injured side to make the throbbing stop. "Why do you have those guns?"

"I made a mistake, years ago, and it caught up with me." Phil almost smiled. "You should go, before they get here."

"Where is Mrs. Reyes?"

"On the way to New York, to see her brother." He managed to smile this time, but it was a sad expression. "I mean it, kid. Get out of here."

"I can help you. We can take the guns back to Pete and-"

" _Pete_ ," Phil repeated in a scornful tone. "If they get their hands on this many guns this will no longer be a neighborhood, but a battlefield. I have an appointment with someone much more powerful than him. Everything is going to work out."

I doubted that, but Phil looked determined, and he just told me to leave again when I tried to insist he go to New York with his wife. He was almost manic in his insistence that everything was going to be alright, like the Muerte had not already sent someone to kill him.

"You're a good kid, Michael," he said at last, rising from his chair, setting his shotgun down, and removing me bodily from the shed. He walked me up the side of the house, stopping before we made it to the driveway and putting his hands on my shoulders. He looked at me very seriously, a probing, thoughtful kind of look, and murmured, "Everything is going to be fine. You'll see."

I let him leave without trying to convince him again. It was late and I was tired, my body ached, and I still had to deal with Pete. Phil was right. If he got his hands on those guns, this place would turn into a battlefield, and if I wasn't going to give Pete the guns or the money, I had to find a way to get him to leave me and my family alone – a way that didn't involve getting him decapitated.

Dad was still fiddling when the Charger and Nate was solving a few last minute homework questions on the workbench. Both were silent as I approached, and only Nate looked up when I sat heavily in our old lawn chair.

Hours passed. Nate went to bed. Dad pulled all the wiring out of the Charger and started fresh, muttering to himself. I watched him idly, glad he was sober, glad he was quiet, and strangely glad for his company. My day had been long and filled with conflict, and right now Dad was a constant.

Eventually a long black car pulled up across the street and Phil came out of the house. He shook hands with a man in a powder blue suit and led him and his muscled friends inside.

Dad noticed, but said nothing.

I wondered who these people were, and how Phil knew them, and what he expected them to do about the Muerte. With no sign of them leaving anytime soon, I gave up my surveillance and flopped into bed, resigning to figure it out in the morning.


	4. Flight

**IV. Flight**

 _Miami, Florida._

 _1984._

It was hot out that day, but the heat drew people to the beaches, and the beaches were just about as public as you could get in Miami. Middle of the week, middle of the year, middle of the winter, the beaches were crowded, and I was counting on it.

I sat shoulder-to-shoulder with Andre on a bench that hedged up to the sand, in a shady part of the boardwalk that had the natural beauty of a postcard. He was tearing into a chocolate ice-cream cone, and my stomach was churning at the thought of what was coming. Over and over, images of my family came to mind, and then Mrs. Reyes, and Phil, with that shotgun, and then guns hidden in the rafters of the shed. A little arsenal, just across the street from where my family slept. I thought of what little I had seen of the Death Squad, of the head driven on a pike in the middle of the park, and of the way Pete had looked at me, with a special kind of loathing. The only other person who had threatened me like that, who scared me like that, was my dad, and deep down I knew he would never _really_ kill me. Pete on the other hand, seemed determined.

It all mixed together inside, making me tingle with excitement, making me want to vomit, to get this show on the road, and to run for my life all at the same time.

If not for Andre, I might have bolted already.

He tossed his cone in the trash and sat back, squeezing my shoulder with one hand, and staring out at the beach. "You sure you want to go through with this?"

"He threatened my family."

"I know, I know. But you could try to get the guns again."

"Phil is guarding them, and he knows what I wanna do with them. I bet he's still sitting in the shed with that shotgun. No, this is the only way."

"But he already beat the crap out of you once, Mikey. Besides, look at all these people. Do you really think he would be that stupid? Come on, man. We can hide out, figure something out."

"No. I made up my mind."

"I could carry your ass out of here, keep this from happening," Andre grunted. He watched two tourists cross our path, and then stared dead at me, his seriousness disturbing. "What if he decides to start shooting? What if he puts you down in the woods, just like that?"

"Then I go down, and he goes away for murder."

"I swear to God I will tell your mom if you try to go through with this."

"I can do this." I was seriously doubting myself, sweating, my stomach churning, but there was no way I would back down. It was too late. "Just trust me, ok?"

He grumbled, not making good on his threat. He never did.

"If he lays a hand on you again, I'll break his neck."

"He won't catch me."

"I'm just sayin'…"

It was time.

When I was five I got out of the house for the first time. It was the middle of the night and Dad had come home late from some construction job, and the door slamming open woke me. He crashed on the couch and left the door cracked, and I snuck through it. When the adventure wore off and I was in the middle of the road alone, every large object became a monster, every door became unfamiliar, and I felt terribly and sickeningly alone. Mom had come out to the sound of me screaming and even my dad had seemed concerned.

I felt like that now, walking alone through perfectly bright neighborhoods in central Miami. Other people were around, sprinklers were going off, cars were cruising past, and I was alone with my fear for what was about to happen.

Before coming down here, I had called Pete and recanted my offer to help him, challenging him to come to this neighborhood and do something about it.

His enraged threats echoed in my head.

Tires squealed down the road.

A black car sped toward me.

My heart thrashed.

I dashed into the woods, quickly putting trees between myself and the angry tires. The car jerked to a stop and every door flew open. Without the crowds to hear him, Pete flung threats at me as he gave chase through the woods, and the one time I chanced a glance back, I saw three more guys with him, all of them armed.

I got used to fear when I was little, but fear was not always a handicap. It told me how much I cared about something, how fast I could run, how much pain I could endure. Since learning that, few things in life had really, truly scared me, and Pete was not one of them – it was what he said, the threats that echoed through the forest, that put little slivers of fear into my mind. As withdrawn as I wanted to be, as much as I wanted to leave and join the army and never look back, I loved my family. Nate and my mother were my responsibility, and to think of them getting hurt because of something I did terrified me.

But that terror only pushed me further. I tore through vines, scraping my arms up on thorns, nearly tripping in a hole, leaping over a log only to jar my ankle on a rock hidden within the leaves. I relied on memories, breathing in short bursts, my torso burning as my ribs scraped around, that pressure rising with each passing moment.

As the energy left me, the forest broke, and I sprinted into the middle of a crowd of people wearing tacky paper hats and singing. So did the guys chasing me.

I grabbed partygoers and flung them aside, rushing out into the open of a tiny park. I tried to slow myself, but I ended up hitting the ground face first, bloodying my nose, gasping for breath, my legs screaming, the air gone from my lungs, and not an ounce of fight left in me.

Pete was fast behind me, drawing his gun, and the crowd scattered. People shouted in horror. His lackeys shoved their way toward us.

I looked around frantically for the police that Andre was supposed to call to the park, but I hadn't covered half of it when Pete caught up to me and tried to punt my face like a football. I threw up an arm and the force of the kick rolled me several feet.

Pete stomped on my shin, cocked his gun, and pointed it at my chest.

Everything stopped. I put my hands up, trying to look at Pete past the glaring sun. He was panting as much as me, sweating as much as me, with a face young like mine, and a shiny silver gun clutched in one outstretched hand. His expression was a mix between an animalistic rage and a grim satisfaction.

"Please," I said, not struggling, not even blinking. "You don't want to do this."

Pete didn't get a chance to reply. From across the park, a thick male voice shouted, " _Freeze_!"

Pete was the one to stop this time, his face rigid with shock. I was viscerally satisfied by the waves of understanding that washed over him. His eyes darted toward me as the gun slipped out of his hand. He put his hands on his head, his eyes already blurring with tears.

He was wretched away from me by an officer and I scrambled to my feet. Pete was thrown onto his stomach and cuffed along with his friends.

While they were busy trying to wrestle one of the thugs to the ground, I scrambled to my feet and made a mad dash for the other side of the park. I barely heard one of the officers shout, "Hey!" before I cleared the trees. On the other side, on the little road that led to this park, Andre was waiting in his mother's green Chevy.

I slid into the passenger's seat and he sped off toward home.

"Everything go ok?" Andre prompted.

I held a finger up, trying to catch my breath. "Great… it went… great."

"Your nose is busted up."

"I noticed."

"Did Pete-?"

"I fell. I think I broke it." It was still hard to breathe. I slumped over the dash and stared at the road, feeling nauseas. I could barely focus on the pavement.

Andre put his hand on my back. "You can sleep on the couch. Mom won't be home till midnight."

The couch was lumpy and old, but lying down made me feel much better. Andre brought me ice water to sip on, and we watched cartoons until late in the evening. Nate came over and played some stupid game with Ricky, and no cops showed up to take me into custody. My plan had worked out almost as I had planned it – minus the broken nose – and Pete was on his way to jail for waving his gun around in a crowd like a psychopath.

One of my problems was resolved – the personal one. When my head was clearer, when a little sleep fixed whatever was broken inside me, I could put my mind to protecting the Reyes family.


	5. Vanished

**A/N: Sorry guys! I mixed the chapters up between two stories and accidentally posted them in the wrong place. This is the real chapter 5 for Birth of a Warrior.**

 **XxX**

 **V. Vanished**

 _Miami, Florida._

 _1984._

" _I think they went back to Mexico. Phil probably sold those guns, huh? Probably sold them to some other gang or something, and they went home. I bet they took a boat, just sailed down the coast back home. White sand beaches and shit, right, Mikey?"_

It had nine days since I had walked into the Reyes house and found it vacated. Everything was gone. Furniture, pictures, shampoo, drink coasters. Mr. and Mrs. Reyes had vanished, and their shed was hanging wide open, and no one had seen or heard anything the night before. Nobody had seen them leave, and nobody knew where they were – not the police, not their family, not even their landlord. So their house stood there, not up for sale, but empty, and their car sat in the driveway, a payment due in a few days, but no owner in sight, and their mailbox hung open from all the mail they had never collected. Newspapers piled up on the front steps.

" _Mikey, I bet they went home. The Muerte would never follow them all the way there, just for a few guns. You know they got plenty of guns, and plenty of money."_

I spent the first few days looking for them, because as much as I wanted to believe that being seventeen made me a man, I still had this childish sense of goodness inside, like things could not possibly turn out _this_ badly. I was overcome with a feverish need to find them, turning over every rock in Miami, forgetting caution, forgetting to sleep. I asked everyone I could think of, every single family member I had ever heard them mention, and even walked fourteen miles to the upper-class neighborhood where their nieces lived – the Grotto.

It was there, standing in my sandals, getting rained on for the third time that day, with wet, flat hair and purple-ringed eyes, that the truth finally came to me.

They were gone. It went through me like a chill, like a fever breaking, and suddenly the rain was a whole lot colder, this quiet neighborhood a whole lot lonelier. Life had been tough so far and I considered myself pretty grown up already, but standing there I felt like a lost little boy. I had been so invested in helping them, so determined I could solve this problem of theirs, only to have the rug swept out from under me.

I must have looked pretty terrible, because a kindly old police officer – one who I had never seen, who patrolled nice neighborhoods like this – picked me up and delivered me home. I confessed stiffly that I had just gotten lost, but could not put words to the truth.

Mom was waiting for me when I got home, a cigarette in one hand and a scowl on her face. She had seen my dropped off by the police one too many times. When we got inside she wrapped me in a hard, smoky hug, but said nothing, only half-understanding my mood. She knew the Reyes family was gone, too, but the depth of it was lost on her. So I blamed her for not knowing, and slammed every door I could, frustrated enough to crack the frame in the bathroom.

For a long, long time I stayed there in front of the mirror, looking into my own bloodshot eyes and wondering what I could have done differently, to stop this from happening. If I could have been more convincing with Phil, or if I had gone to the police, or if I had handled Peter second, and focused on the Muerte problem first, maybe they would still be here.

And where had they gone, anyway?

I was so convinced they had been killed and carted off in the middle of the night, but could Andre be right? Could they be sailing home?

It stayed in my mind for days, even as I walked mechanically across the stage at graduation, and even at the bus station, where Mom and Nate gave me long, tearful hugs, and Mom made me promise to call her every chance I got, and Nate looked pitiful and forgotten.

I settled into my seat, ignored the kid sitting next to me – my age, and headed for the same fate – and stared out the window, watching my Mom and brother grow smaller as the bus pulled away, and clutching my backpack to my chest. It was everything I was told to bring: fifty dollars, a change of clothes, and my permission and health slips. I was allowed to bring one personal photo, and most guys, I figured, would bring pictures of their girlfriends, but I didn't have any with Rebecca. Guys without girlfriends would probably bring pictures of their families, but all of our pictures were bad memories for me, and I left them behind.

As the bus rattled on toward Fort Benning, the anger and confusion surrounding the Reyes' disappearance began to dissipate, letting in excitement and anxiety, and also curiosity. I used to think I was so good at reading people because of Dad, because of the kind of life I had, but when it came to Phil I had been dead wrong.

I looked around the bus at the other boys, the ones who had backpacks like mine and nervous smiles on their faces, and wondered if it would be the same way with them, with everyone. Were people all just hiding beneath smiles? Did everyone have secrets as big as those?


	6. Leader-Reaction

**VI. Leader-Reaction**

 _Fort Benning, Georgia._

 _February 11, 1984._

Getting processed through as an army recruit was a lot like moving through the lunch line at school – if the line was ten miles long and on fire, and all the lunch ladies were yelling at you to move faster. I spent most of my time being handed gear, filling out paperwork, getting vaccines for diseases I had never heard of, and getting measured and tested. I gave out my name over a hundred times, stated my new army ID number, and got shuffled from room to room with the same group of guys until almost midnight every night. We were woken before dawn, given a meager breakfast, and the lines started all over again. It went on for three days.

We were in the barracks, finally, sitting in a half-circle around McKinney, a bunch of wide-eyed boys with fresh-shaved hair, wearing camo pants and big, clunky boots.

McKinney looked like he was born to be a drill sergeant – tall and straight-backed, with a square head that complimented his haircut, and deep-set, beady black eyes. He wore the same uniform as us, but with extra patches on his shoulders and a hat coming halfway down his forehead, occasionally straightened to touch his sprawling ears equally. He spoke gruffly, in a deep voice devoid of any audible accent, looking at no one in particular but somehow managing to stare us all down. He tolerated nothing less of complete obedience.

When he gave out orders, there was no repetition, so everyone leaned in to make sure they got all of it the first time. None of us wanted to be the only one who had no idea what he was doing.

"You will be divided into five teams of seven soldiers each and you will participate in the leader-reaction course. In this course you will be expected to function as a team among your fellow soldiers to overcome an obstacle within the allotted time. The team that completes the objective first will be awarded an extra fifteen minute phone call tomorrow during free walk."

He drew artificial lines through the assembled recruits, diving us into five teams. I was joined with five I had never met, and two I had talked to a little during processing. One of them had been beside me on the bus when I left Miami – his first name was Bryan, but now he had a stamped badge on his chest that read 'Ford.' When the sergeant dismissed us, he turned to grin at me, mouthing something that got lost in the mass of stirring bodies.

We formed lines outside, almost robotically, and I realized some of our training had taken place in processing. We were fast to get in line now, and ready to jog to our next destination.

McKinney looked pleased with our display as he came out. He had his arms folded at his back, that hat perfectly straight, and his breath made a long line of steam as he whipped the lines into shape. "Five-to-five, straighten up. If I see another damn slouched shoulder…"

It was freezing outside, and the coldest I had ever been, but I stood patiently in line behind Ford and gazed across the base, wondering how far we would have to run to get to the training grounds. We had seen a map of the place briefly while we signed our paperwork, but it was too cold to remember anything. A biting wind surged through the ranks and I shut my eyes, shivering. It felt like the wind was slithering into my uniform, dancing on my skin.

"Alright, ladies, we are southbound. Break ranks and make your way. Olsen will be there to direct you to your station – announce your group when you see him."

It turned out the training fields were close to the barracks, and almost directly south of them. I followed a string of recruits on a quick jog across two streets, and one of the other drill sergeants, Olsen, came into view. People shouted their group numbers to him and he flagged his hand in one of five directions, indicating large, walled-off areas with more soldiers standing by them in full uniform, their hands folded neatly behind their backs, their eyes forward.

I rejoined Ford and the others at the second to last area, getting my first look at the setup.

It was early morning, just a few minutes after dawn, so everything was bathed in an extraordinary light – and the fifteen-foot-tall concrete wall in front of us was glittering with dew. On the ground by the wall were two sturdy wooden boards and a length of rope, coiled like a snake. I knew what they wanted us to do the moment I saw it, but the _how_ was lost on me.

McKinney stood back a ways, so that everyone could see him from beyond their dividers, and shouted his orders. "This will be the first in a series of Leader Reaction courses. Your objective is to overcome the obstacle – and no, you are not permitted to walk around it."

His words got a few chuckles.

"You will each have a senior officer monitoring your progress, but they will not help you to advance. Once the first group has cleared their obstacle, the remaining groups will have five minutes to clear their obstacles. You will cycle through all five obstacles, and at the completion of this course, the team who finishes first the most will be rewarded fifteen minutes of phone time to be utilized on the next Sunday, or during the next free walk, whichever comes first."

His instructions were clear, and his words rang out in the quiet morning air. I listened and got the gist of it, but I was still trying to wrap my head around this _wall_. It was glorious, a mighty slab of concrete with a smooth texture, no handholds, and a strange set of supplies with which to climb it. It reminded me of when I was a kid, when Andre and I would scale buildings in the city.

A fog horn signaled the start of the competition.

Five of my teammates rushed forward, toying with supplies, and touching and tapping the wall, and I stayed back with one other recruit – Hart. He was shivering so hard that his teeth clacked together, but he had sweat stains already forming at the pits of his new gray T-shirt.

Our officer, Tully, came a little closer and leaned in to look Hart in the face, frowning, "You sick?"

Hart shook his head, crossing his arms, _hard_ , and pressing his hands into his sides.

"Oh, I get it. Where are you from, recruit?"

"California."

Tully snorted, looking up at me, "You feeling homesick, too?"

"No, sir," I responded, a little quiver in my voice. "Just looking at his wall."

"How long you plan on standing there, just looking at it?"

"Until I figure out how to climb it, or how to use those boards and that rope."

He shrugged, stepping back to lean on the divider. His eyes slid to the others, who were tying the ropes ends to the boards, and trying to get it to stick on the other side of the wall.

"Sir," Ford said at one point, "Do all of us have to get over, or just one of us?"

"Think on that really hard."

Ford nodded, disappointed by the answer, and advised the others to stop trying to climb it. It was pointless if some of them were strong enough to run and grab the top, pulling themselves up. I was standing next to a guy who was sweating just standing still. Hart had to weigh the bare minimum. He looked like a skeleton in that uniform, and he lacked the muscle or the fat to keep himself warm. He also looked daunted by the wall, and he was a little on the short side. Everything added up against him and it made using sheer strength seem futile.

"We have to get Hart over the wall," I said, finally moving up with them. I tested the rope in my hand, deciding it could hold the weight of any of us, individually.

Another recruit, James, tried again to toss the tied board over the wall, to get it to stick to something on the other side so he could use it to pull himself up, but it just fell back over and bonked him in the head, giving Tully a good laugh.

"Hart, come here," Ford beckoned, patting the wall. "We're gonna hoist you up."

"That's no good," James said. "If we all hoist each other up-"

I could see where Ford was going, and I stepped in to hand one of the boards to Hart. It had the rope attached, with the other board tied at the end. "Hold onto this. Can anybody tie a really good knot? Fix the other end so it stays level when you hold the rope up like this…"

We worked for another minute or so, tying knots, and making sure Hart understood what he had to do. He was the lightest, after all, and the easiest for us to lift to the top of the wall.

He stood on our hands – me and Ford – and we hoisted him up. He got a leg over the top and scrambled to sit up, panting out steam, and his face was suddenly cast in shadow, because the sun was rising behind the wall. It was like we were fighting to get to the sunlight.

Hart sat nervously, sliding the rope down between his legs, and it began to tug. Ford and I were already holding James up, ready to put him on the board as soon as Hart provided the counterweight. He jumped suddenly, and we hoisted James, and he made it onto the board and got his arms on the other side, but then Hart hit the ground, the board James was standing on slipped from under him, and he was dangling by his arms on the wall. I grabbed a foot and tried to push him the rest of the way up, but the guy was _heavy_. Despite the cold, sweat broke on my forehead.

James slid back down our side of the wall, landing ungracefully in the grass.

"Okay, do me." I pulled the rope back down, holding the far board in my arms. Ford gave me a doubtful look, but one of the others joined him in hauling me up anyway.

I was not as light as Hart, but not as heavy as James, either. My only trouble was that I was unsure of my own upper body strength, and I struggled when I got my arms over the wall. I strained and scrabbled, and eventually got myself, panting, to the top.

I lay across it, looking down a moment at the other side – a plain patch of grass with the scrawny recruit Hart sitting shamefacedly by himself.

I repeated the process, sliding the wood down, turning on the concrete, and lowering myself so that my feet were planted on the board and the rope came up in front of me, went over the edge, and supported the board on the other side. I put all my strength and focus into my arms, keeping the board on the other side lower, and then put my weight down as the first guy climbed on.

It worked. One-by-one, regardless of their physical ability, we were able to teeter-totter all of the recruits to the top of the wall. For the short ones, or the weak ones, I brought the wood lower in the first place, and the another recruit helped me put weight on it to get him closer to the top, so he only had to shimmy over. Ford came last, pulling himself over without much help from me, and dropped with a soft thud. He and James grabbed my legs to help me down, so the board on the other side wouldn't fly over and knock me out.

As soon as my feet hit the ground, Tully blew his whistle.

I sat on my knees, letting the cold, dewy grass ease the tension in my legs. Tully came around, making sure we were all there, and blew his whistle again. He waved for us to come back to the other side, and we walked around this time.

McKinney came over, and Tully gave him a brief description of our contraption. He looked at his watch, nodded, and said, "Seven minutes. Excellent time." He stepped back, shouting, "First round goes to Group Four! You have five minutes to overcome your obstacles." He stepped back into their divider, and said, "You have five minutes, or until they all finish. But stay here."

Hart laid out in the grass, and James started trying to scale the wall on his own, convinced he needed help from no man. I sat against the barrier and kneaded my shoulders, surprised I had had the physical strength to hold myself up like that, and then a little proud. Ford sat with me, doing his best impression of a dead body, falling into a deeper and deeper slouch until time was up.

It turned out each obstacle was a test of teamwork, and as we progressed, my group became more cohesive. Our second obstacle was a stretch of water, with concrete slabs on either side, and we had two fifty-pound barrels of water, two long, flimsy boards, and some rope with which to get them across. We went swimming several times, but learned to plan better while we stood bouncing, freezing from head-to-toe. We came up second in that one. We bested the others in the next two obstacles, and failed miserably at the fifth, almost getting time called on us.

Even when we had cycled through all of them, McKinney switched up the materials provided for some of them and sent the struggling groups back through. We returned to the dreaded moat, and McKinney hovered, instructing us on weight distribution and posing questions about our methods.

When it was over, and half of Echo Company was soaking wet and miserable, he ordered us back to the barracks, briefly, to change into dry uniforms, and then to return for physical training.

Running was easy for me. I enjoyed the jogging, thrived on the rush of adrenaline it gave me, on the lovely, aching sensation in my calves. But I hated suicides. McKinney had us all stand on a white line, about twenty feet from another white line, and run to it, ducking down, tapping the line with our hands, and dashing back as fast as we could. It burned the first time, and every time after that, working my thighs, my arms, and my back in alien ways. Some of the recruits fell far behind in the count and we were all forced to keep going until they had completed their sets – but we weren't allowed to slow down at all. I found myself cheering for Hart, breathless, as he made it to the line the last time. McKinney blew the whistle and everyone collapsed.

We exercised long into the afternoon, until every muscle ached and my ears were ringing from the persistent cold. The sweat on my body turned against me, making the wind much harsher, making me feel like there was ice on my forehead.

At five, we hit the showers, a crowded, noisy, smelly affair, and then the mess hall, where I shoveled food down my throat without caring what it tasted like or where it came from. We were given three hours of free time, from six to nine, and I spent it sitting in my bunk, stretching my arms meticulously from side to side.

All of the beds were identical, steel bunkbeds with dark sheets, each with a locked closet built into the wall next to it. The floor was smooth, light-colored tile, and the ceiling was dotted with soft fluorescent lights. It was a big room, with lots of open space, but it was strangely warm. Recruits lounged in their bunks, talked excitedly to one another, or dug through their backpacks, lamenting how little they had to do in their free time.

He had been chattering all day, but for once Ford was quiet. He sat up on his bunk, the one next to mine, and read silently from a small, well-worn paperback book.

Everything became strangely peaceful around eight. We had all been up very early for training, and spent the whole day running around, so a lot of the recruits turned in early. I watched them go, one at a time, and let my own exhaustion sink it. It felt good, like I had accomplished something.

McKinney came in at nine, announced lights out, and shut the overhead lights off.

It was easy to sleep despite my throbbing shoulders, the pinching pain in my back, and the constant knowledge that I was in an alien place – I was over a hundred miles away from dad, away from those hooded red eyes, away from my responsibilities at home.

It was the first glimpse of real peace I ever had.


	7. Free Walk

**VII. Free Walk**

 _Fort Benning, Georgia._

 _February 12, 1984._

"Get over it, get through it, or let it destroy you."

His words rang through the frigid morning air like a bell, high and clear, and in voice gruff from just waking up, we repeated them back to him. It was dark out, cold as sin, and the wind bit right through my crisp army uniform, making the tough fiber feel more like a wet napkin.

We fell into formation, an army of shadows marching across the base, racing the dawn, trembling, hardly making a sound ourselves to preserve the warmth in our bodies.

"Get over it, get through it, or WHAT-?"

Our voices formed a chorus, " _Let it destroy you_."

Snow drifted down, never seeming to touch the ground, but piling on my shoulders. I kept my face forward, squinting against the harsh floodlights that lit the field before us.

Precious seconds passed and I started to get used to the cold. One shuffling step at a time, I widened my strides, relaxing the taut muscles in my calves, letting my arms swing more freely instead of hugging them to my sides. I chanced a breath through my mouth, and walked through the stream it produced, wincing at the ache the cold put into my teeth.

McKinney shouted again, "Get over it, get through it, or WHAT-?"

" _Let it destroy you_!"

Morning was the best time to gets things done. Guardsman were at the end of their watch, dew covered everything and made surfaces slick, it was bitterly cold, dark, and silent, and every man, woman, and child needed to sleep. McKinney beat that into us as he stood in the barracks with his megaphone, stirring us all from sleep an hour early. He took no questions that morning, only ordered us outside and had us start up a frigid jog.

We stayed out for two hours, until the sky began to lighten and my lips and nose felt like they might shrivel and fall off. We ran half the time, and walked the other half, though the running was much more pleasant in the cold. The recruits who chose to breathe through their mouths were rewarded with a dry, hacking cough as the air took its toll on their throats. I puffed through my nose, and by the time we stopped it was raw and tender inside.

I ran beside Ford, who I learned a lot about in that hellish two hours. He was sort of simple, an obligatory high school graduate who came from a flyover state and talked with a light southern accent. He spoke little, but he followed commands well, and since we had taken a short bus ride together before arriving, he had taken to finding me, wherever I was, and putting himself beside me. In that way he was a little like a dog. He was ugly, too, and not the simple kind of ugly. His face was covered in scars from a long history of acne, he was missing the top of his ear – according to Ford a horse had bit it off – and his head was shaped like a rectangle. He might have been an easy target for jabs, but Ford was as strong as an ox, with big round muscles on his arms and a thick barrel chest. He could scale that cement wall on the leader-reaction course with no help.

His presence kept the other recruits at a distance, because silence was dangerous, but Ford was big and ugly and gentle. Even in the blistering cold he found the time to look over at me and grin.

When the run from hell ended, McKinney brought us to an office building on the edge of the field we had been running around on all morning, keeping us marching in place as he walked up and down the lines to have a look at us. It was the first scrutiny he had paid us all morning.

He pointed out flaws in uniforms, occasionally putting his hand on someone's back to indicate they should stop slouching. By the time he got to me I had tucked in the remains of my shirt, rebuttoned my jacket, and stiffened my back. He passed right by me and struck his boot out, tapping Ford on the heel. He was moving his feet too quickly.

We were divided between two classrooms inside, and Ford sunk into the chair beside me, picking at the front of it nervously. He had barely slept the night before, buried in that book of his, and it showed in the deep circles under his eyes.

Before he left, McKinney came to each classroom and said his mantra again,

"Get over it, get through it, or WHAT-?"

In the small, warm classroom, our words seemed so much louder, " _Let it destroy you_!"

Our soft skills instructor was a tall, rigid man named Allister. He had no cards, no notes, no textbook, but the moment he arrived he started in on the history of warfare in the United States. He spoke quickly, sharply, his lessons more like a story he had witnessed in his own lifetime than a history that went back centuries. It was such a blunt change from our two-hour run that I had a hard time staying awake – the adrenaline was leaving me, dancing away like the snow.

Hours passed as Allister rambled on through the wars that had plagued the country, detailing battles and strategies. He put a particular focus on weaponry, how it was advanced and used, and the many forms of communication the army had utilized over the years.

He let us out once at noon to use the facilities and eat a hasty lunch, and then had us back for tests and quizzes, to place us on a scale, he said, so the army knew what to do with us.

It was a necessary evil, because it was Sunday, and the last half of Sunday was free walk.

I heard about it in processing, from some other recruit, who heard it from an officer somewhere down the line. Free walk was the best part of basic training. Recruits got the afternoon off to make the phone calls they had earned, go to religious services, or use the exercise facilities on base. When that foghorn sounded a basketball game stirred on the courts and I went to watch.

I sat alone on the bleachers, clutching my arms around my chest to keep myself warm, and turning my head against the wind. If I closed my eyes I could almost pretend I was back home, sitting beside the courts near the house and listening to another pick-up game come to an end, waiting my turn to jump in. It was always summer then, and the thought of it sent a wave of warmth through my core. For a split second it was like Andre was sitting beside me.

Someone tapped on the bleachers, and I had to open my eyes and let Miami slip away. With it went the warmth, the comfort, and I found myself in the cold shadow of my drill sergeant.

He looked staunch and groomed, as always, and faced the icy wind without flinching. He was still wearing his uniform, perfectly arranged to make his shoulders look wider, his chest flatter, and his head less square. McKinney looked to me the perfect soldier, but it was not his uniform that I respected him for. He said what he meant, spoke concisely, and never once seemed threatening, like the other drill sergeants who roamed the base with their platoons. Even if he was just parroting rules and regulations, living by a code, following his routine, it was admirable.

I had only known the man for two days and had never spoken to him alone, without my company around me, so I felt vulnerable out there on the bleachers.

He cleared his throat, and said, "Westen. You earned phone time yesterday."

During the leader-reaction courses my group had won enough to claim the extra phone time, and I had seen them use it one at a time, holding onto that payphone like it was something more than plastic and metal to them. Family and friends. Ford told me he was calling his girlfriend, to make sure she was still waiting for him back home. Hart had called his mother. When he walked back toward the church he was wiping his eyes.

I watched them from my perch on the bleachers, wondering about the lives they had come from. Would they understand why I stayed away from that phone?

"No one to call, drill sergeant," I said to McKinney, trying to be respectful, and wondering if I should have jumped up and saluted him when he got here. It was too late now.

He surveyed me with cold, dead eyes, and nodded. "You best find something else to do, then, instead of sulking on these bleachers. You might have come here alone, but you got a hundred brothers now. Make some friends. I've never had a suicide on my watch."

I snorted, and the drill sergeant raised an eyebrow at me. With only a look, he made me flush and scrambled for words, "Um, sorry, sir, I just… I wasn't sulking. I was just watching."

"Watching? Watching who? Watching them?" He motioned at the game going on behind him, without actually looking that way. "Would be a lot warmer if you joined in."

"I can see better from here."

"True, but just seeing isn't enough." McKinney motioned me off the bleachers, and when I was standing, he inspected my uniform again. "Not a stitch out of place."

"No, sir."

"No, _drill sergeant_ ," he corrected mechanically. "You get to know people a lot better when you get close to them." Having him so close was eerie, because his perfect, soldierly face was also devoid of most emotion, hard or soft, and it had its share of notches where skin had been lost and regrown. Up this close I could see wrinkles I had missed before, and a thin line trailing all the way from his forehead to his chin, where someone must have cut him.

I wanted to step away, to get out of the scrutiny of those black eyes, but his words and his tone made me curious. "What do you mean?"

"I mean, people are complicated. What they do and what they mean to do are different. I saw you watching them in processing, and watching them yesterday on the courses, and watching them today while you were running – too much watching. These boys aren't your enemies, Westen, they aren't out to get you. Whatever you came from, whatever made you so scared, you're not there anymore. So go join in."

His words hit me like a shovel to the face. His beady black eyes were looking right through me. Part of me was angry – I wasn't _scared_ – and part of me felt far more vulnerable than before. Naked in the cold. Was I really that easy to read? Did I look like some scared lonely kid sitting all by himself on the bleachers?

I stammered, "But the teams-"

"Referee, for all I care. But get your ass off the sidelines. You're a smart kid, I can see that. Maybe a little quiet. But the best rangers I ever knew were quiet, too."

" _Rangers_?"

"Rangers lead the way," he said, almost to himself, in a voice that betrayed an uncharacteristic sadness. He grabbed my shoulder then, giving me a rough shove toward the court. "Get out there and learn something. I see you sulking again, you'll get a lot more than a talk."

There was no arguing with the man, even though the teams were full and even. McKinney had talked about rangers – army rangers, the best of the best – and the thought of going down that path sent a shiver through me. Was that what he saw in me? No. He had only known me two days. He was just trying to keep me from being the first suicide on his watch. He thought I was sulking, so he threw me a bone.

Still, the idea dug into me, a planted seed, and sprouted, blossoming over the rest of the afternoon. I took some career pamphlets back to my bunk that night and looked through them. I had never thought about what I would actually _do_ in the army, only that I wanted to get away from home, and the army was the best option.

Engineering, electronics, navigation, bomb diffusion – and of course the rangers. When I had gone through processing, my personal score had given me a lot of options. Soon the paper tests we had taken that day would come back and make the future clearer.

Ford sat on the end of my bunk, munching on an apple he had pilfered from the mess hall, and looked through each pamphlet as I finished them.

He read slowly, meticulously, but persisted through every word. He took the ranger pamphlet and shook his head at it, "I heard they beat you in ranger school, and break your thumbs."

McKinney came in before I could ask why they would break your thumbs. He called for lights out and then shouted his mantra again, one last time for the night,

"Get over it, get through it, or WHAT-?"

In the barracks, a hundred sleepy voices responded in unison, " _Let it destroy you_."

He shut the lights off and the barracks went black. Ford had hidden his apple when he came in, but now he retrieved it and the sound of him biting into it made me cringe.

"Long day ahead tomorrow, I heard," Ford said, a talking shadow. He switched over to his bunk, laid out, and kept munching on his apple. "Something about gas."

"I hope they don't break our thumbs," I responded, turning away from him.

I pulled the wool blanket up to my nose and thought about home again.


	8. A Little Hart

**VIII. A Little Hart**

 _Fort Benning, Georgia._

 _February 18, 1984._

I started to think of my training as a test after a week had gone by. It was something I had to survive to prove I was strong enough to leave home. Harley and Gordon disappeared after gas mask training, Turner, Blue, and Andrews made it halfway to the end of a muddy obstacle course, and then their bunks were cleared out. One by one the weak lost points, failed, or cracked. Late at night I could hear them talking to their bunkmates about how tired they were, how much they wanted to go home, how their minds had changed and they wanted to leave.

Ford turned onto a massive shoulder one night and sighed to himself, "You know, when people quit in the middle of basic, they don't get to go home. They get put in holding, so the army can figure out what to do with them. If they just stayed they would probably get home faster."

I had spent a whole week with Ford, always jogging by his side, racing him through small obstacle courses, trying to do more push-ups than he did – and failing. I got used to his pock-marked face, to that terrible smell he gave off after a long run, and to that southern drawl. He spoke softer than most boys, thoughtful, even though he seemed a little dim to me at first. What I liked most about him was how little he talked. We could go a whole day saying nothing to each other.

Ford talked the most at night, if he was going to talk at all. He knew a lot about the military and he gave me pointers relevant to whatever we had done that day. He made me tuck in my legs to do sit-ups, and stop flapping my arms so much, and to turn my wrists when I did push-ups. He knew the secret to the perfect suicides, and when it came to jogging, he was the king.

"Focus on the legs in front of you, and match their pace," he would say, sitting up to hold his hands out and demonstrate exactly which way I should face. "No more, no less."

He laughed when I told him why I had a lot of stamina during our runs. When I was little and Dad was on a bender, I would lead him around the neighborhood for hours to entertain myself. Ford had his reasons, too. His family raised pigs and he was the one responsible for chasing them down when they busted through the fence.

It was our second Saturday at the base, one week since we started, when they carted us off into the country and delivered us to a heavy green fence. It was impossible to see over and military personnel checked us at the gate.

Ford leaned over and said, "Obstacle course."

He was right. We rolled into a massive dirt field dotted with obstacles. One of the walls looked fifty feet high, with hand holds and no safety net. There were low barbed wire nets with ridges of mud beneath them, sandy tracks with lanes made of tires, and climbing bars with muddy moats beneath them to mark anyone who slipped off the bars.

McKinney was waiting for us when we got off the bus. He looked over us all, giving me and a few others a serious look. I looked away, focusing on the ground. I had been one of the people to cry and vomit outside of the gas chamber, but unlike Harley and Gordon I got back up. McKinney had screamed in my face for a solid five minutes, asking me if I wanted to be a soldier or a coward, and I responded _soldier_ every time. He put me back in line, slapped me on the back, and moved on to berate the recruits who were still on their knees.

"We've lost seven recruits in seven days," McKinney began, eerily, walking back and forth along the lines of Echo Company with his arms folded in the small of his back. "I want you all to look at this course behind me and decide now if you're _man_ enough to take it on."

Silence.

"You will not be allowed to stop until you and your partner cross that finish line, or until time is called at five," – it was dawn, and those words were an ominous threat – "This is the jungle in Taiwan. This is the swamp in Egypt. This is a rocky hill in Tanzania. Use your strength, use your head, and keep my uniforms out of the mud. _Do you understand_?"

Like a chorus of trained birds, we responded, "Yes, drill sergeant."

"Get over it, get through it, or WHAT-?"

"Let it destroy you!"

His voice came again, louder, "Get over it, get through it, or WHAT-?"

" _Let it destroy you_!"

We were lined up in pairs at the far side of the field. It should have been random, but Sergeant Tully walked his favorite recruit, Hart, over to me and patted both our shoulders. Ever since he saw him shiver that first morning at the leader-reaction course, Tully had taken a special interest in the skinniest, shakiest recruit. I suppressed a groan at the sight of him.

Hart was the opposite of Ford in every way. He was smart, he babbled, and he was suspiciously small for his age. He looked like he was built completely of bird bones.

"Today is not about time, but completion," McKinney went on. "Stick to your partner. We do not leave any man behind. You are all brothers now."

I would have rather gone through the course with Nate.

When the foghorn went off, I sprinted for the first obstacle – a massive slanted wooden climbing board with ropes slung across it to use for balance. It was inclined at a hard angle, but my boots got a good grip on the grainy wood and I was able to hunch and run straight to the top. I jumped the ropes like they were snakes. It was the easiest obstacles and everyone else was doing the same as me, except my partner.

Hart was struggling on one knee, near the middle of the obstacle, having run up part of the way and then fallen down. He gripped the ropes and tried to pull himself up instead.

"Go back down and run up!" I shouted.

He looked up, squinted, and slid backwards until his boot was back on the ground. This time he got a running start, made it halfway up again, and got his foot caught in a rope. He flipped, fell a little ways, and hung there like he was on display.

Laughter erupted from the recruits lingering on the top to watch the show.

I covered my eyes for a second to black out the world and cull my temper. Tully must have had it out for me, to make me partner up with this unbalanced chicken.

"Sorry, Westen," Hart called up. He was red all over.

I grabbed a rope and walked down to him, taking him roughly by the arm and yanking him to his feet. He was light, almost the same weight as Nate. "Step over the ropes this time."

"You're supposed to climb it," Hart grumbled.

His calves were as skinny as his biceps, but I kept my comments to myself. It was cold and the other recruits were way ahead of us by now. Ford had probably already started the last obstacle, as quick as he was. If we had been partnered up we would have made it to the end by now.

Hart grabbed a rope, following my lead, and hunched over like an awkward turtle. I saw the disaster before it happened and stayed at the bottom. Hart shuffled toward the top, hit another rope, tripped, and rolled back down, giving a big _oomph_ as he landed on his back in the dirt.

Tully noticed our struggle and came over to us, "Wall too steep for you, recruit?"

"No, I just tripped," Hart responded, hopping back up and dusting himself off.

"Put your weight forward, and grab a rope for balance," Tully advised.

Hart tried again, looking more like a mountain climber this time. He tripped, but recovered, and made it three-quarters to the top before he went down on one knee – _hard_ – and tried to climb up like the wall was sheer. I had to look away to keep myself from laughing.

"Westen!" McKinney beckoned me from the shade of the climbing wall. When I was close enough, he whacked me on the shoulder, "What did you not understand about no man left behind?"

His tone pinched a nerve, and anger boiled up in my stomach, "I was waiting."

"You were laughing at him."

That struck me. Was I supposed to be his partner, or his babysitter? "Come on, sergeant, he can't even climb a wall with no gear on."

"Did he cry like a little girl after the gas mask training?"

I examined the ground again. "No…"

"Did he quit, like the other seven?"

"No."

"No, _what_?"

"No, drill sergeant."

"Hart is here to become a soldier, like all the other boys busting their assess every day. When it comes down to it, it doesn't matter why you came, or what shape you came in, it matters that you're brothers. When the bullets start flying, you're brothers." McKinney struck me in the middle of the chest with surprising strength, making me stagger backwards. "Now go and be his brother."

Groaning would have gotten me smacked again, so I closed my mouth tightly and went back to the base of the obstacle. Hart was still trying and failing despite the advice Tully gave him. Watching him felt like watching an injured lamb limp across a busy highway. He had no business here, and one day his weakness was going to get someone killed. He was holding me back. He was making me look like an idiot in front of two sergeants.

But when I thought about confronting him, telling him what I thought, it reminded me of how my dad used to go after Nate. He thought he was too small, thought he was too skinny. Just the thought of having anything in common with Dad quelled my rage.

There was only one way Hart was getting up that wall, and it wasn't yelling at him.

I sized him up, angled myself sideways, and picked him up. Hart gave a startled cry and squirmed as I laid him lengthwise across my shoulders. Without pausing, I ran up the wall. His weight was nothing. I had carried Nate like that a hundred times. The incline set my calves on fire, but the satisfaction when I reached the top canceled it out.

I dropped him unceremoniously, panting.

Hart got up, dusted himself off again, and cleared his throat. "Warn me next time."

I nodded and patted him on the shoulder. The next obstacle was worse – ropes hanging from poles that you had to swing across like a money. The other side was over fifteen feet away, and the muddy moat waited at the bottom.

McKinney and Tully moved over to watch us.

"Can you do it?" I asked Hart. I already knew the answer. In the leader-reaction course he had failed with physical maneuvers many times, and he could only do twenty push-ups before he hit his stomach for good.

Hart gave me a skittish look. "I can… I can do it."

I waited this time, and watched him make his way, miraculously, to the third loop of rope before he dropped straight into the muddy water. He came out sopping wet, looking like a stick bug in that oversized uniform. He climbed the ladder and joined me on the platform again.

"You're stubborn, I'll give you that." I couldn't carry him this time. There was no way. But the drill sergeants were watching and I wouldn't be allowed to leave until me and Hart both made it through the course, so we had to try. "Grab onto my neck."

Hart was much heavier when his arms were around my neck. I swung from one loop to the next and the weight seemed to double, until it was too intense and I had to let go. We both hit the water. It was so cold I yelped. My uniform was flooded. My boots were soggy. I followed Hart back into the platform and trembled against the wind for a moment – and then we tried again.

And again.

And again.

"This is impossible," I said to McKinney the fourth time we hit the water. "He can't do it."

"Either quit, or keep going, Westen. Five will come either way."

I groaned all the way to the top, arms aching.

Hart tried on his own again, and failed on the second loop. When he made it back up I had to take a moment to bend over and breathe.

We took a short break, recuperating, using the two walls on the platform between obstacles to stay out of the cold wind. I sat on one side, and Ford sat on the other. It was nice to be out of the judging eyes of the sergeants, and away from all the other recruits, who were way ahead of us. Hart curled his legs up to his chest and closed his eyes, and I stared up at the ropes.

Finally, it came to me.

"New plan. Step in my hands. I'll hoist you up, and you use the ropes like stepping stones."

I hoisted Hart up and he grabbed the top of the obstacle, putting his foot through the loop. He held the poles at the top and walked along instead of swinging. Once he was on the other side I swung across, nearly falling in as my strength left me. Hart grabbed me by the jacket and yanked me toward the platform, and we both fell down, panting, dripping through the grated metal.

Down below I heard McKinney giving muted praise, "Clever."

Hart did well on the climbing wall. His low weight made his lack of strength trivial. He could use his arms and legs to climb, and before he even started he mapped out his path. He scurried up like a little spider and showed me the way, but when he got to the top he couldn't make it over. I had to go around him and pull him up.

We ran into other recruits at the top of the wall. They were soaking wet, rethinking the strategies they had used for the next obstacle. It was a ladder suspended twenty feet above a muddy pool, going straight across to another platform. Giant balloons swung back and forth over the length of it on strings like pendulums, and the rungs of the ladder were wet and slippery.

"How is your balance?" Hart asked me quietly.

"Great." I watched a recruit get knocked off by a balloon, and winced. "But I'm doubting myself."

"We already know mine is bad, so how about we compromise?"

Hart turned out to be a pretty clever guy. What he lacked in strength he made up for in intellect. I was stronger and better balanced, so I carried him piggy-back style, and he gave me precise instructions on how to avoid the balls. I could focus on balancing on the ladder rungs, and he could focus on where the balloons were.

We made it halfway across the first time, but I slipped and we both hit the water. The second time we made it three-quarters before Hart miscalculated my speed and a balloon hit us. Other teams were already mimicking us. The third time we made it across, and two other teams followed us in a similar arrangement. Hart was so proud we had to linger so he could clap for them.

Next we had to run along four-inch wide wooden beams suspended on pillars, only inches above the murky water. Hart fell in seven times before I went back to him, made him hold my boots, and ran through it barefoot. He made a whipping sound at the end like he was riding a horse, so I dropped him an inch or so off of the platform and let him swim back.

It was midday when we came to another difficult obstacle.

It was just a line of eight ropes, tied to a post that was twenty feet high. We were given black climbing gloves and told we each had to ring the bell at the top.

Hart tried his damndest to climb it, but he could only make it ten feet before his arms gave out and he slithered back down. He sunk into a crouch after each attempt, breathing heavily, rubbing his upper arms, looking up at the rope and trying to think his way through it.

We tried to climb it with him holding my neck, but he almost choked me halfway up and I had to come down. He tried holding my waist, but he pulled my pants down and the sergeants and every other recruit laughed hysterically until I made it to the bottom and yanked them up again.

We ended up with Hart on my back, his arms wrapped so tightly around my torso, right under my arms, that it felt like he was squeezing my heart. I breathed short and fast, tugging my way up with my arms, sweating despite the cold. Every muscle pulled and complained at the extra weight. Near the top I slid down several inches and held on tightly. It felt like I couldn't go on.

"A little further, a few more feet," Hart said, also breathless.

I released one hand and dangled, one-handed, for several seconds. I imagined I was climbing down that old ladder at the stadium, with the cops coming after me, with Nate dangling on my back. I imagined what would happen if the police delivered me to my house again.

One more pull, and I made it. I rang the bell, and Hart rung it right after me.

I came down the rope one hand at a time, resisting the desire to just let it go.

At the bottom, I laid out in the dirt for a while, watching other recruits try to scale the rope. Some couldn't do it on their own, but their partner was either not strong enough, or not big enough to carry them. Some of the bigger guys had a hard time because of their weight. I was glad for the first time that I was lean, not burly. I was glad I had spent so long climbing around in the city, sprinting through my neighborhood, and beating up mattresses with Andre.

Hart sat up beside me, looking away. "Sorry I'm so bad at this."

"I'm glad I got you and not that guy," I said truthfully, motioning to Smith, one of the bigger recruits who could only climb halfway up the rope.

"My parents said they wouldn't let me in the army, because of how small I am." Hart looked over at me, finally, and his face was changed from that morning. He looked satisfied, and happy. I had never liked the look of him – hook-nosed, drawn, dark eyes – but this suited him.

I sat up, groaning, and let my aching arms hang limp at my sides. "How much do you weigh?"

"90 pounds. I had to get a note from my doctor to enlist."

I snorted. "Come sit on my back next time we practice push-ups."

"You know I thought you were gonna be a lot meaner, when I met you."

"Why?"

"You never talk. Not much, anyway."

I looked across the obstacle at McKinney, who was berating a recruit for falling and knocking his partner from the rope. "Never been a big talker."

We sat in silence for a while, until I made myself get up. We walked together to the next obstacle, a big metal triangle with ropes lying over its side. We had to grab them and use them to walk up one side. The other side was made up of boards, to climb back down to the ground.

Ford took a while to get the hang of the rope. I refused to carry him up this one, so I sat on the point at the top and called out instructions, until he finally wrapped the rope around his wrist and scaled the side. He grabbed my hand and slipped, flat on his belly, and I pulled him the rest of the way up. Going down was much easier.

At the end we walked over the line together, and I laid in the dirt and sucked down a whole canteen of water, letting the cold ease the ache in my muscles. Hart went off to talk to McKinney, and Tully came over to stand by me.

"You did a good job today. You showed superior physical condition."

I nodded as respectfully as I could with a canteen in my mouth.

Hart returned, and Tully complimented him on his perseverance. McKinney gathered all the recruits who had finished the course and made us do laps around the field for half an hour, and then ran us through PT drills until he was satisfied we were exhausted. I laid down under one of the nearby structures, back flat on cold concrete, and napped with my hat over my face.

A whistle blew at five and I sat straight up. Ford was getting up beside me, having laid down without me noticing. He held out a hand and helped me up, and we both jogged to the center of the field. McKinney was beckoning the last stragglers over the finish line.

Some had not made it. Smith never did climb that rope, so he and his partner sulked in together, and Wilson was still trying to figure out the climbing wall so his partner Garret was sitting on top of it, looking down at him sadly. McKinney reeled them in, too, giving them dirty looks as they joined the ranks. We were all muddy and disgusting and cold.

"When we get back, you have free time. I suggest you all start with a shower." McKinney led the march back to the bus, shouting, "Get over it, get through it, or WHAT-?" the whole way.

It had new meaning to me today, so every time he said it I responded the loudest, not caring that my throat ached from all the cold water I had swallowed, " _Let it destroy you_!"

I spent the day outside, playing basketball with Ford. I even called my mom, and told her about the obstacle course and how the drill sergeant had complimented me. She was bitter when she answered, because I hadn't called since I left, but my tone softened her up. Soon I was gushing about my life in the army and I used up all the call time I had earned without noticing.

Ford and I walked into the barracks together an hour before lights out. Dean had smuggled in a pack of cards and we all sat down to play some stupid game he made up.

Recruits trickled in, hitting their beds like falling slabs of concrete, and the cards were put away. I sat up on my bunk, still glowing from my victory, and Ford read that little book of his for the third time. It was warm in the barracks, and the dim light could have put me to sleep.

But something kept me up.

One more bunk was empty.

Hart never came in.

I waited, hoping to see him again so we could share a celebratory smile, hoping that I now had two friends out here, but his bunk stayed empty. McKinney came in to announce lights out and then shut everything off, without Hart in his bed.

Something possessed me then. I jumped out of my bunk and ran out after him.

McKinney turned, surprised by the sound of the door slamming open. I stopped short, uncertain of what I meant to say. We stood bathed in the light of a base streetlamp, four feet from each other.

He narrowed his eyes. "You should be in your bunk, soldier."

"Is something wrong with Hart?" I blurted.

McKinney looked at me for so long I thought he was trying to set me on fire with the sheer power of his gaze. While his eyes finally softened, his tone was hard, "How old are you, Westen?"

"Seventeen."

"I was seventeen when I joined, back when you didn't need mommy and daddy to sign your little forms." He looked me up and down then, and said, "Hart requested to leave right after you finished the obstacle course this afternoon."

I had never been shot before, but those words must have been what it felt like to have a bullet tear through your chest. It was silly to feel so strongly about someone you had only known for a day. It wasn't even about Hart, really. Hearing those words took away my glow, took away my victory. No matter how much I had accomplished – physically, mentally – it suddenly felt like I had failed.

 _Now go and be his brother._

"W-W-Why?"

It was all I could manage to say, and it made me sound like a little boy.

McKinney snorted, and put his hand on my shoulder, his tone gentler. "You saw him. He was barely hanging on. Some people aren't strong enough."

He turned on his heel and walked off, adding over his shoulder,

"But you, kid, you were born for this."


	9. Weakness

**IX. Weakness**

 _Fort Benning, Georgia._

 _February 21, 1984._

Bryan Ford was twice my weight and girth, looking more like thirty than the young eighteen he claimed to be. He wore black leather gloves that only covered his palms and knuckles, a pair of the heavy camo cargo shorts we had all been commissioned, and nothing else. His torso was a knotted iron wall, striped with scars I had only seen in passing in the showers – but now they bulged pink in the harsh lights of the gym. He was a good runner because his family raised pigs and he was the one who chased them down when they broke out of their pens, but he only told me this morning that the pigs were wild boar, semi-feral, and their tusks had taken most of the feeling from his chest and back. He was bigger than me, stronger than me, and he barely felt pain.

He was my sparring partner the first time we trained in unarmed combat.

With a drill sergeant named Swann bellowing in my ear about using my size as an advantage, and other recruits wrestling on the mats all around us, I tried my hand at taking Ford down. He was sturdy. When I charged him it was like running shoulder-first into a brick wall. Ford slapped his hands down on my shoulders and flung me backward, so I went sprawling off the mat.

McKinney stood over me, holding a hand out to help me up. He pulled me roughly to my feet and shoved me back onto the mat, so I staggered in front of my bigger opponent.

"Before the first colonist set foot in our beautiful country, the German monarchy picked the heaviest, tallest boys and started training them to be soldiers," McKinney said, circling the mat with his hands folded customarily behind his back. "People like to imagine that size is an indicator of skill, that the mean boys are the quickest to strike, that gentle boys can never be warriors. I see a fundamental disconnect in you, Westen. You could run at Ford a thousand times and he would swat you off just the same. Three days ago you beat my obstacle course weighed down by the scrawniest little son of a bitch to ever train at this base – where is that ingenuity at now?"

It must have been the most the man had ever said to me at one time. His tone was cutting, his words stung. He was right. Running face first at Ford was stupid. But McKinney was making it sound like I was as small and weak as Hart. "I'm not small," I objected.

McKinney paused and cocked a fine silvery eyebrow. "Where your opponent is concerned, you are. Everybody looks small to a giant, right, Ford?"

"Yes, drill sergeant," Ford responded dutifully.

"Has anybody ever taken you down, son?" McKinney asked.

"No, drill sergeant."

"So what do you think is different today, Westen?" McKinney continued his circle, striking my back as an indicator to stand straighter. I did, and the drill sergeant appeared at my right side. "When little boys try to play soldier the first thing they think of is brute strength. But fighting is a puzzle, just like that course, and a lot of these recruits were taken down a peg because they rushed into it." He raised his voice, so the other sets of partners could hear him, "Look at you all, locked together, wrestling for the upper hand. In a battlefield the longer the fight goes on the more likely you are to lose. You get tired. You get weak. A muscle stretches too far. Your opponent's allies show up, or they get a hand on a weapon. Break up and start over. If the fight lasts more than thirty seconds you both lose."

Everyone reset, and I faced Ford again, hot with frustration. McKinney said fighting was a puzzle of its own, but there was nothing someone my size could do against a monster like Ford. I couldn't help saying, "You haven't taught me any moves."

" _Moves_ ," McKinney snorted. "Get in the ring, Westen."

I lunged, getting low on the approach to try and lift him by the waist and slam him down. I had seen one of the more helpful drill sergeants teaching another pair to do it. Ford stumbled as I took his weight for a split second, but he got his hands on me and twisted my arm back until I yielded.

McKinney had taken over for Swann for good, to my horror. He sent the other drill sergeant away and loomed over Ford and I, shaking his head after each failure.

Over and over again, I threw myself at my opponent. Hours wound on and my sweat made the mat slick below my bare feet. Nothing I did worked. It was futile. It was hopeless.

When the lunch whistle blew I was frustrated enough to go straight for a punch, not caring if Ford intercepted it. He caught my fist with his palm, shoved my arm back, put one meaty hand on my collar, and slammed me into the mat so hard I saw black dots. The wind rushed out of me.

He released me and I lay there, dazed.

The other recruits started to leave the gym to take a short break before continuing with unarmed combat training. I could only sit up, holding my aching chest, and try to find a breath.

Ford crouched beside me, saying, "Sorry."

I waved him off without responding. He was the last person I wanted to look at right now. Just like when Hart left after the obstacle course, I felt like the day was one big failure. What had I really accomplished? Nothing but gaining more bruises. I had proven to McKinney and myself that I couldn't solve the puzzle he was talking about.

McKinney circled the gym, offering a few praises – and way more insults – to the recruits that were leaving. He spied me still sitting and came over, offering a hand. "Get up, kid."

His hand was leathery and he was a lot stronger than he looked. He hoisted me upright and slapped me hard on the shoulder again – a spot that was starting to get sore. "Sit out a few rounds when we come back, and you'll get it."

He was benching me. I couldn't stand the thought of food, so I climbed up the bleachers and sat alone at the top, fuming. My frustration over not being able to make Ford flinch boiled together with my anger at McKinney. He expected too much, without teaching me anything. The other sergeants walked around the area, offering advice and encouragement, and I got the drill sergeant who liked to tell cryptic stories without ever actually helping. Why did he keep fixating on me, anyway? He had much easier targets who would bob their heads along to his stories, boys who would probably melt under that cold gaze of his. I wanted to be anonymous in the army, to never know anyone like my father again. But the world must have been brimming with men like him.

When the gym filled up again, I did as I was told and sat out the first few rounds of fighting. Ford was partnered with the equally large, but not quite as ripped, former farmer Smith. While equal in size, Ford had the clear advantage in power. Smith did what I did, tried to get him off his feet, but Ford had a low center of gravity.

He was bending his knees.

I leaned over, watching his pose. Ford stood with a sharp angle in his knees. He held his arms at the same angle, like an ape waiting to strike at a fly. When Smith struck him, trying to shove him like a sumo wrestler, the bend in his knees deepened, his feet spread, and he held his ground. He stayed that way, rigid to pressure, until Smith let up a pinch. As soon as the weight of his opponent lessened, Ford would either shove him – knocking him over because his legs were so splayed, his feet unaligned, one knee straight and the other crooked – or grab him under the arms, twist sideways, and dump him onto the ground to his right. Whether pushing or pulling, Smith stood no chance against the sudden attack. I had never thought Ford could be so fast.

His strategy was unchanged with each opponent he faced, and I found myself figuring out what the other champions of the ring were doing. James was lightning fast and he usually attacked first, jerking one way and then the other like he was trying to fake someone out in basketball. He struck at the first vulnerability, sometimes smacking his opponent in the face with an open hand. If they stumbled, he tripped them. If they tried to attack as well, he retreated. Others had the same brute strength and steady center as Ford, only to a lesser degree, because Ford soon took them down as well. Oswald was the strangest, lightning fast and dodgy, getting a few opportunistic hits in, retreating, and then coming back to do the same over and over again until his target made a mistake.

By the time he beckoned me back to the mats, I knew what McKinney meant.

Fighting, it turned out, was just like the obstacle course. Each opponent was a new challenge but the laws of the world remained the same. Gravity, the weaknesses of the human body, the patterns trained fighters fell into. Each person I faced had their own style, but they also had the same weakness. Their bellies, their shins, their necks. Most recruits flinched away from a strike toward the face, making themselves vulnerable because they wanted to protect their head.

Smith was the first recruit I managed to take down. I waited like Ford had, baiting the water, and when he charged I slipped to his left side, catching his foot on mine and tripping him. I mimicked what I had seen another recruit do – a former wrestler – and dropped down immediately, grabbing Smith by his chunky leg and locking it against my body, pressing it to bend unnaturally.

He tapped out, and I cried out in glee.

"Smith, switch," McKinney ordered, giving the big boy a pained look. He brought James over for me next, saying, "Former boxer, real heavy hitter. Protect your face," before he left.

James was much faster when I was on the mat with him. He hit me in the shoulder, tripped me, and pinned me before I could think to exploit any of the weakness I thought he might have. As it turned out, he had none. Or, none that I could get to.

I staggered upright, took a moment to breathe, and then waved my consent for the fight to start.

James took me down a second time, in a similar fashion.

"Damn, man," I gasped, as he helped me up. " _How_?"

"Dad was a boxer, I was a champ in high school," James explained, stepping away from me to show me a few rapid jabs into the air. He was leaner like me, nearly the same height, but I could never imagine moving that fast. "It's all in the feet."

James was switched out. Everyone lost their partners and got new ones. McKinney paired me with another bruiser, a nearly seven-foot-tall former quarterback with a mean, jutting jaw. When he wasn't around, the other recruits called him Slack-Jaw Jensen. His fists were huge and he had a big rectangular head. Just looking at him gave me chills.

He was slower than me, but the power behind his blows took me to my knees before I could make a dent in him. He hit me again when I was down, with the underside of his fist, and the impact flattened me. I tasted blood and sweat, and plastic, and blacked out for a few seconds.

The day ended and we all limped away with bloody noses and fresh bruises. Jensen turned out to be a brutal and unyielding opponent, even when I managed to get him in an illegal chokehold. He struggled until he blacked out. He knocked me out two more times, until McKinney decided the two of us couldn't be partners anymore. I got two more, a smaller boy I was happy to dominate, and then Ford again, who was still too much for me. He didn't get me down quite so easily anymore, though, and that left me proud.

McKinney remarked to me on my way out, "Steel trap, that head of yours."

I was so blown away by that compliment that I stopped, and Ford plowed into me. I staggered three feet and nearly fell, but managed to keep my eyes on McKinney.

"If you make it through, you should look into ranger school. They need men like you," McKinney went on, hitting me in that same spot on my shoulder again. It made me flinch.

 _Men_. It was the first time someone had used that word to describe me. Even if it came from McKinney it made me smile. His suggestion meant little to me until the day ended and we made it back to our bunks. I asked Ford about ranger school, since he was my source of military knowledge, and he gave me his best description.

"Rangers are leaders, and they go through the toughest training you can get in the army. Pushes everything – your body, your sanity – you come out a certified badass. I had an uncle who was a ranger. Toughest son of a bitch I ever knew."

"But what do they do? Where do they go?"

"Same stuff as us, except they're the leaders. Hostage rescue, infiltration, secret stuff."

He was vague, and he said nothing more about it no matter how much I asked. His words left me wondering about what McKinney had said. Did he really think I could be counted among men like that? The idea made me feel proud again, and determined. Next time we trained in combat, I was going to be an iron wall like Ford. Next time we went to the gun range, I was going to hit dead center in the target, every time. McKinney wouldn't have to tell anymore vague stories about small boys and big opponents, because that wasn't going to be me anymore.


	10. The Quiet

**X. The Quiet**

 _Fort Benning, Georgia._

 _March 4, 1984._

I ran silently through the darkness, clearing a hundred feet of open ground in a few seconds. In the half-light I nearly tripped on the first spool of barbed wire, stretching threateningly between wooden stakes. It was a long set of squares hanging over a pit of mud. One step in and my boot sunk almost four inches, making a sick squishing sound as the mud tried to swallow me up.

" _In_ _the height of the Vietnam war tactical recovery units were formed as a prelude to the modern army rangers. Hostage situations were so common the units were trained using new programs to increase the rate of hostage survival, and one of them was the night infiltration course_."

Each step brought me closer to the end, but deeper into the mud. It got harder and harder to work my boots free to make the next step, and my legs got heavier and colder as water splashed up on my pants. Water seeped into my boots and soaked my socks. My big toe sheared up against the side of the boot as the shoe slid sideways, and I could feel the blisters forming.

" _In the jungle, or in the city, in the dead of night without so much as a moon to guide them, soldiers were taught to move quickly and quietly with over fifty pounds of gear, to become ghosts_."

It was the middle of the night and barely forty degrees outside. I had fifty pounds of gear in my backpack, I was wearing my full uniform with a tank top under an army shirt and a thick camo coat over that, and pants so heavy I had to strangle myself with my belt to keep them on. It was hard to keep track of time with no sun, but at least two hours had passed and the end seemed miles away. I was all alone, ahead of the pack, staggering through the dark.

" _If we all ran through the forest screaming like banshees, we may win, but the people we're trying to save will lose. If we start every fight with gunfire, we may win, but the people we're trying to protect will lose. If you give up, if you decide the jungle is too hot, the mud is too deep, the slope is too steep, the people who cannot fight for themselves will lose."_

When the barracks alarm went off in the middle of the night and they shuffled us into busses and delivered us here, to this cold, dark field in the middle of nowhere, they had pulled me out of a bad dream. Tully gave us our history lesson on the bus, but my mood was black and I just waited for him to finish talking, so we could get this over with. What he said barely sank in at the time. But it had been two hours and there were no other recruits around. It was coming back, giving me fantasies about becoming a ranger and saving those people he insisted we try so hard for.

Finally the barbed wire ended. It took me ten more feet to realize I could stop walking carefully. I dragged my boots over the solid ground, took a knee, and then fell dizzy to my hands. I panted until foam formed at the corners of my lips.

"You were assigned to a team, Westen."

His voice came out of the night, back at the barbed wire. He walked up to me with his arms folded behind his back, a smooth, fresh new cut partially hidden under his clean army hat, his uniform free of all the mud and wrinkles and chaos of mine. McKinney had his lip curled, obviously displeased to find me like this, and his tone made my hackles raise.

"Have you memorized the creed yet?"

I shook my head, trying to get my feet under me to stand again.

"No, no, stay down there." McKinney adjusted his pants, and then fell into a squat in front of me, his eyes glimmering black in the darkness. He spoke softer, "Second line. I am a warrior and a member of a team. You think wars are won by men going off on their own?"

He was waiting for an answer, but it took me several seconds to find one that wasn't disrespectful. Going home was not an option. "No, drill sergeant."

"You have someone you know who was a soldier?"

"No, drill sergeant."

"Let me tell you how war goes, then." He pointed backward, where the barbed wire was still glistening, and spoke in a soft, menacing tone, "War is a thousand boys all marching in together, holding their polished guns and chanting, until the shooting starts. It's piles of bodies so thick you have to walk on your own friends to keep going, until a bullet hits you and you join the carpet and become someone else's stepping stone. It's one thing going wrong, and losing it all. Courses like this help prepare you for infiltration, yeah, but all of this – this place, this training, those barracks – prepare you to be part of a _team_. You left yours behind."

I felt my jaw stiffen, locking into place like iron, and the words all got backed up. His description came to life in my head, but the people on the ground were stick figures and mannequins, and the gunfire I heard never came with bullets, and the jungle never showed me the enemy. I didn't know what they looked like, or who they were, or where I might end up.

McKinney could have seen that in me, or he could have seen the stubbornness, the anger, coming through. I was prickling at his words, indignant at his insult, angry to be treated like a child again, to be lectured. Whatever he saw, it made those black eyes narrow. He stood straight, and beckoned me to do the same, reaching up to pull my hat down hard over my forehead and set it straight.

"Start over."

My jaw unhinged, " _What_?"

"Start the course over, recruit. Everything is twice as hard on your own. If you want to be alone so badly, you can do it alone. Go back to the beginning and start over, and I swear if I hear you whine about it one time you can spend the whole week digging ditches by the road."

I took a step back like he had punched me, my whole body heating up despite the cold. McKinney was a big man but I found myself sizing him up like a territorial dog.

He didn't notice my aggression, or ignored it. He just turned and walked off, saying, "Maybe the quiet will teach you something."

I must have stood there for ten minutes debating with myself. Going home was not an option, but did I really want to stay here? I could see my dad smirking, could feel his satisfaction if he found out I failed. I could be the person my mom expected me to be – a hooligan with a minimum wage job barely making ends meet, with hungry mouths to feed and a drinking problem. I could be the man I thought my father was when I was little – strong and brave, too clever for most people, with no fear of the unknown. But when I thought of going home, those people melted away. I was going to be something else. I could feel it.

If he wanted me to go through the course again, alone, I could do it.

I pushed through mechanically, doggedly, and slowly, growing colder no matter how much I exerted. My backpack got heavier, my uniform wetter, my boots clunkier. I fell off of obstacles I had cleared easily the first time through. I let my shoulders slump, let my poster sink into a hunch, and dragged on.

Headlights flashed over while I was swimming across one of the ponds, my bag floating in front of me. It was the bus. The other recruits were leaving.

I was really alone now.

Hours passed in silence before I made it back to the barbed wire. I stood looking down at the squares, glistening with water now that the other recruits had all been through them. It was even harder to get through them the second time and I kept getting my pant leg stuck, but there was no more frustration, and no more anger. By the time I made it to the other side and sunk down to my knees, panting, all that remained was the determination.

McKinney was waiting for me in the same stiff pose. As soon as I was down on my knees again, he said, "Repeat after me. I am an American soldier. I am a warrior and a member of a team."

He was a big man, straight-backed, with a square head and a matching haircut. In the dark it was easier to look right at him, because those black eyes of his were obscured. His gaze could cut through steel on a sunny day. I couldn't decide what made him so interested in me. His face gave away nothing. His words were flat and monotonous.

"What do you want from me?" I asked.

He said it again, firmer, "I am an American soldier. I am a warrior and a member of a team."

I hesitated, and then responded hoarsely, "I am an American soldier. I am a warrior and a member of a team."

"I serve the people of the United States, and live the Army Values."

Next to his baritone, my voice sounded thin. The contrast reminded me of when I would having screaming matches with my father when I was little, when I sounded like an upset kitten. "I serve the people of the United States, and live the Army Values."

"I will always place the mission first. I will never accept defeat. I will never quit."

"I will always place the mission first. I will never accept defeat. I will never quit."

"I will never leave a fallen comrade."

His description of war came back to the front of my mind, and I pictured Ford lying there on that mass of bodies. How far could I carry him, if it came down to it? Would he do the same for me? "I will never leave a fallen comrade."

"I am disciplined, physically and mentally tough, trained and proficient in my warrior tasks and drills. I always maintain my arms, my equipment and myself."

I got up on one knee, and struggled to my feet, my calves aching. "I am disciplined, physically and mentally tough, trained and proficient in my warrior tasks and drills. I always maintain my arms, my equipment and myself."

McKinney straightened my hat again, grinding the seam against my forehead, and then started walking away. He motioned for me to follow. "I am an expert and I am a professional."

"I am an expert and I am a professional."

I had nowhere else to go, so I followed him. We were all alone in the dark, several miles from the base based on the bus ride over here.

He crossed a deserted road, glancing both ways despite the late hour, and approached a beat up camo van parked on the roadside. His door squealed when he dragged it open. "I stand ready to deploy, engage, and destroy, the enemies of the United States of America in close combat. I am a guardian of freedom and the American way of life."

I repeated his words, staring at the van hungrily. I hoped he didn't want me to walk back alone. I was so tired that standing was getting hard.

McKinney turned toward me to say the last line, "I am an American soldier."

"I am an American soldier."

He curled his lip again at the soft finale I gave. "Learn it. Live it." He patted the van. "Get in."

It was warm inside, and McKinney blasted the heat. I leaned heavily on the window and watched dark grass pass by the roadside.

"It may not seem like it now," McKinney said during the drive, "But each of those statements means something important. It speaks to our way of life. Civilians will never understand. Your brothers in combat are the people who will be closest to you on this Earth. When you go to war with someone you become part of each other, forever."

He fell quiet, and I had nothing to say.

He dropped me off at the barracks and I trudged to the showers alone. He was right about the quiet teaching me a lesson. Ford would have made that second run through the obstacle course easier. He barely talked, but companionship had its own sound. It was like music. In the barracks I flopped down onto my bunk and looked over at him, at that stupid little book he read every night.

"What?" he wondered, after a moment.

"If I got shot or something, would you carry me to safety?"

Ford looked back to his book, and answered simply, "Like a sack of pure gold potatoes."

That made me smile. It was the best I had felt the whole night. While I lay there in a state between nagging exhaustion and sleep, I thought about McKinney. I thought of his favorite words.

 _Get over it, get through it, or let it destroy you._

Today I had gotten through it.


	11. Letting Go

**XI. Letting Go**

 _Fort Benning, Georgia_

 _March 23, 1984_

Ma wrapped me in one last tight hug, for the road, she said.

"You call home when you can, and tell me what you're up to," she whispered, her voice choked. Hearing it made my chest ache. "If you see danger you run the other way."

"I will, Ma."

"I love you _so much_."

"I love you too, Ma."

She pulled away, and held my face in her hands, with this look like she had finally noticed how different I was inside and outside. Ma always knew. She kissed my forehead, and then let me go.

Over the past weeks I had been sent into chambers full of noxious gas and forced to take my mask off. I slipped down a bumpy obstacle and landed face first in a sticky briar plant. Boys I had grown close to, people I tried to think of like brothers, dropped out of training and dropped out of my life one by one. It all seem trivial now. Nothing could sting as much as watching my mom walk away. She was going home with every expectation that one day I would follow, and she had no idea that I was never coming back. She had no idea.

When she was gone a weight lifted off of my shoulders. I sat on the picnic table at the top of the hill, under a shady tree, watching families come and go in the parking lot below. I wondered if the other recruits had mothers telling them to call home, and fathers giving them the cold shoulder, or little brothers wondering when they would play together again. Ma made it seem like I was heading into a minefield with death and danger always one step away, and it made me wonder if those boys down there would survive, if I would survive. We were going to spread like birds over the globe, according to Ford, and see things we never imagined.

McKinney had been making nice with families all day, but when most of them were gone he trudged up the hill and joined me. He was smiling for once, but to himself. It was a private expression. He must have been proud of all of us for making it through training.

He sat on the picnic table beside me and unwrapped a stick of gum.

"Bolton got a hold of me today," he said, gazing out at the horizon, "Once you complete AIT and serve your mandatory four months as an infantryman, he wants you on for screening."

"Where am I going?"

McKinney glanced over at me and snorted. "Where do you want to go, kid? Persia, Lebanon, Honduras… lots of places with boots on the ground right now. Doubt they would waste talent like yours on a domestic assignment. But who knows." He chewed his gum thoughtfully, and leaned back against the table. "Wherever you go, try to stay alive."

He was listing places I barely knew existed, and suddenly the world seemed a whole lot bigger.

For a while he sat there and chewed his gum, that smile slowly fading from his face, replaced by somber thoughtfulness. He hummed something to himself, pulled out a cigarette, and lit it, only taking one puff before he rubbed it out on the table. He held his silver lighter in his hand, cracking a dark smile at it. "I got this when I came home the first time. Bunch of hippies were carving them out, stealing words said by some great man, sometime."

I watched him hold that lighter like it was a precious gem, curious and cautious. "What does it say?"

He laughed, "It says a lot. We the unwilling, led by the unqualified, to kill the unfortunate… die for the ungrateful." He flicked the lighter up, gazed at the flame for a split second, and then put it out. In one motion he stood from the bench and clasped me on the shoulder, "It ought to be the creed. Good luck out there, kid."

With that, he walked off, humming and singing under his breath, back toward the barracks, " _Who dares to put a musket on his shoulder, to shoot some other mother's darling boy_?"

I knew the song, because he hummed it sometimes while we were running drills. Ford said it was an old war song. I thought McKinney seemed proud, the way he was walking around and putting his hands on everyone, smiling at families, but I was wrong. He was giving them one last goodbye, telling them he was proud, and then he was leaving just like my mom.

Both of them were saying goodbye, and letting go.


	12. Unspoken

**XII. Unspoken**

 _June 1, 1984._

"Dust is more important than people think," Ford said, twisting his hands around in a sunbeam with tears still sparkling on his cheeks. "It makes up everything, you know. Everything we are, everything we think about. Everything that ever was or will be is just dust."

He never spoke much in basic training, or when we moved to the light infantryman training and became part of a battalion. He kept it buttoned when we were deployed to Somalia and the others in our battalion started whispering about cannon fodder. He spoke one or two words on the plane, a phrase or two on the twelve-hour hike into the desert, and barely commented on our new living space, a series of black tents absorbing heat on a sandy basalt outcropping.

But we got a call on the satellite phone to interrupt our days idly patrolling the desert, to inform him that his father had passed away and that he was not excused from duty to attend his funeral.

Ford talked a lot when he got that news, and wasted precious water on his tears. He never sobbed, never whined, but he sat there against the edge of one out our barriers, staring at the light that came through the cracks and talking about dust. It was the most I had ever heard his voice.

"Dust is everywhere," he kept saying, like we had no idea, like weren't all two shades darker from the dust settling on our bodies. "It never ends, so nothing ever ends. Not really."

I was out of patience for him. It was over a hundred degrees outside, bone dry, and we were sitting in thick pants under a cloudless sky, with no shade to speak of other than what the barriers provided. Inside the tents the temperature could get as high as one hundred and ten, without the occasional gust of wind. Ford had been talking like a crazy person for days and I was sick of it.

"Everything ends," I told him, kicking the barrier he was looking through with the tip of my boot, and making it tremble.

Ford gave me a look like I had just kicked his puppy. "Life is a cycle."

"Life ends. Your dad died, I know, but you gotta get over it."

"It's not that easy."

"It is. Put on your big boy panties and suck it up."

"Easy for you to say. Your dad is a bastard. Mine was a good man."

I had never bristled at anyone talking down on my dad, but his tone struck something in me. It might have been the sun, but it sounded like Ford was talking about us, not our fathers. I let the aggression come out unchecked, "I'm nothing like my father."

He set his jaw, and grunted, almost growled, "You look a lot like him today."

It was like he had punched me. It might have been better if he had. But in the desert it was hard to stay angry. Emotions drained away and dried up in the sand.

Ford shrugged it off.

I kept my eyes off of Ford for the rest of the afternoon. We shared out tent with six other soldiers, and when evening came he gathered us all up to make an announcement in that same solemn tone.

"You guys already know my dad died two days ago. His funeral was today. I wrote a… well, some things about him."

I listened in silence to his words about his father, deciding that he was right earlier. Ford had a good father. He taught him about life, took him fishing and hunting, and said he was proud when Ford decided to join the army. He was everything mine had not been. It was a wonder we had turned out this way, with me quick to talk and clever, and Ford quiet and a little dense. It should have been the opposite. I imagined, for a moment, what a family like that would feel like.

When his speech was over, I got my hands on one of the satellite phones and made my first call home since becoming an infantryman.

"Hello?"

"Hey, Ma."

She paused, and inhaled, and a smile came into her voice, " _Michael_."

"Happy birthday."

"You remembered." Her voice was almost musical, "Where are you?"

"Far away." Explaining where I was, and what I was doing here, would take up precious seconds, and Ma would never remember or understand anyway. "How is everything there?"

"Well, your brother failed his math class, and nobody told me about it until now."

I smiled, glad to hear something that reminded me of home. Nate was bad at math. He was bad at math, my mom was still smoking, and the world just kept spinning.

"Your voice is croaky. Are you getting enough sleep?"

I had gone light on the water for the day and my throat was raspy from inhaling sand. "Plenty. Not much else to do out here."

"No, it's not from that. You sound different."

"I do?"

"You sound scared."

I wondered what fear sounded like. Did it sound like Ford, sitting at the barrier and babbling about dust and death? Did it sound like our tentmate Bryan sitting on his knees every night and praying for the safety of his family and his battalion? Or did it sound like me, a seventeen-year-old boy fresh out of training in a desert half a world away from home?

"You can come home. I left your room the way it was."

Her offer was halfhearted. It always was. She could tell me to come home a hundred times but it would never change what she knew – she knew I had to go.

"I have a tour to finish. I think I was made for this kind of work, Ma."

"Nobody is made that way," she said, almost bitterly. She dropped her sharp tone and murmured, "When you figure that out, you come home."

"Ma, I-"

"Don't you 'Ma' me, Michael. I raised you. I know when my baby sounds scared. All I see are bad news reports from all over the world – bombings here, gunfights there – and I wonder if that's where you are. I'm so scared for you, and you won't even tell me where you are."

Her voice cracked and she gave a little gasp. I hated hearing my mom cry. It was one of my biggest weaknesses. "Nobody is shooting at me, and if they were, I would run the other way. Remember?"

"You _better_ , young man."

"I have to go."

"I love you, sweetheart."

"I love you, too, Ma."

XxX

 _June 1, 1985._

She picked up three rings in, "Michael?"

Hearing her say my name made me smile, and I had spent so long wearing the same blank expression that my cheeks felt like dried plaster.

"Hi, Ma."

"I knew you would call. I was just telling Sophie you would call."

"I just wanted to say happy birthday. I don't have much time to talk."

She took that in, and maybe planned what she wanted to say, "Where are you?"

"Ma, you know-"

"Oh, it was worth a shot. Maybe one day you might slip up and tell me." She spoke to someone else, "One day I might actually know where my son is, right? Wouldn't that be nice, Sophie?"

"Ford is here. He has my back."

"So you got stationed together after all? What did I say about worrying?"

"It'll give me wrinkles."

"It will!"

"I only have a few-"

"Did you pass those tests you were taking? I forget what they were for."

"I did. I'll be commissioned as a ranger soon." I had mentioned, offhandedly, when I called my mom two months ago, that I was about to take my final assessment to be commissioned as an army ranger. It was almost impressive that she remembered.

Ma had a strange memory. If she wanted to use something to torment me, she could remember it forever, but if it was an achievement, something good and positive, she could forget about it the next day. "You know, Patrick Garney bought a new motorcycle with that check you sent, and he drives it up and down the road at night making all kinds of noise."

"He started it."

"You always say that." She paused again, taking a breath that might have been a draw from a cigarette. "You can talk a little while, can't you? Just for a few minutes?"

I was on the rim of a mountain, walking a worn trail in a line of forty soldiers. We had been moving since dawn, from a little village on the border to the interior of the country, where we would engage a larger rebel force and attempt to regain control of this hostile valley. Everything hurt, from the balls of my feet to my throbbing head, and soon night would fall and the temperature would drop and we would all hunker down against the wind, trying not to get blown off the mountain.

But my mom sounded so hopeful, and her voice was a refreshing change from the sound of my brothers grunting and panting.

"Yeah, I can talk for a few minutes."

XxX

 _June 1, 1986._

Her voicemail was dry and quiet, not the same one she had when I left the house. It used to be all of us, pretending to be happy, saying every other word like a sitcom family. Now it was her voice, a tired request to leave a name and number, and nothing else.

"Hey, Ma, sorry I missed you."

I did my best not to sound sad. Lying to people gets a lot easier when they can't see you, when you're just a voice on an answering machine. Instead of trying to control your voice and your sullen face, you just have to make sure you sound more tired than scared.

"Sorry I haven't called in so long. I just never notice the time passing."

It had been five months since I had talked to her, when she managed to track me down and call me at a holdover base on my birthday. Even then our conversation had been short and simple, because I was exhausted and irritable. I tried to sound chipper this time.

"Everything is fine over here. Lots of rain. I got a great tan. Ford says hi." I paused, lost in my script, and pressed my hand to my forehead to find it again. "I love you. I hope you have a great day. Bye."

I hung up. That was it. Just a few sentences, short and to the point. I wanted her to think I was alright, that everything was okay, that I was out of the desert. If it was the only news she got today, I wanted it to make her smile. I might have been the only person to remember her birthday, and maybe my message would make her happy.

Ford groaned and rolled over at the sound of his name, gripping his injured leg in one fist and dragging it with him. Congealed blood spilled over the top of the bandage and stained the mattress. He caught my gaze, blue eyes burning like a comet streaking through the night, and tried to say something. But he was stuck in the pain, briefly, and speechless.

"Rest," I said, cutting him off crudely while he struggled. I was too tired to try and listen to him, too numb to my own pain to imagine his, too tired inside and out. "Just rest."

He spoke anyway, in a defiant gurgle, "How is your mom?"

"Fine."

"Good." Ford laid back, staring up at the pitiful stack of boards we called a ceiling. He always asked about Ma, and I always said the same thing. He never noticed. He was too far gone to notice anything now. "Good, good."

Rhodes adjusted his gun, and wiped his grungy face with his arm, streaking his sleeve with soot. "Four hours and counting."

"Hear that?" I sat down beside Ford, on the only mattress in this hellish place. "Four hours and we can get some morphine in you."

Ford sort of smiled, and said offhandedly, "Didn't think you could… carry me… huh?"

"You're a dense son of a bitch."

He laughed, and groaned, "Don't make me laugh."

"We're putting you on a rice diet when you get better, help you lose some of that muscle. How does that sound? Next time you decide to step on a bomb I can carry you a little further."

"Yeah, good idea," Ford said, forcing another smile. "Find a better hideout next time. Some hot towels would be nice… little mints on the pillow… some stitches."

"I'll keep that in mind."

I thought about the voicemail for a long time, hoping my mom would listen to it while she was distracted, so she didn't pick up the tremor in my voice. Ford and I joked about death nowadays, now that our jobs involved so many risky situations, but when it came down to losing him I was petrified. It was almost assured now. He would die, and become like the dust he was so obsessed with when his dad died. I would have to leave him here, and break my creed.

He kept bugging me about it.

"You should go. You and Rhodes and Burk. You can make it out."

I was silent, and Rhodes only grunted at those words.

"I mean it. Look at my leg. Look at it, guys."

I did look at it, and my stomach twisted into knots. I wasn't squeamish to the wound, but to what it implied. Hot tears invaded the backs of my eyes so I focused on the ceiling.

"We had a good run," Ford insisted.

" _I will never leave a fallen comrade_." I dropped one hand on his chest, right in the middle, and shook him by his jacket. "So shut up."

"Don't quote the soldier's creed to me."

"Stop being stupid and I won't."

He was quiet for a time, and then out of nowhere, "I can't wait to be a ranger. You and me and a bunch of special forces badasses storming the jungle, huh?"

"Yeah. Me either."

He smiled and laid his head back, and I sat there for hours making sure he kept breathing. Only later did I realize I forgot to tell my mom happy birthday in the voicemail.

XxX

 **A/N: I'm so glad everyone has been enjoying this story! I was worried there wouldn't be much interest in a Burn Notice fic so long after the show ended. Anyway, the format of this chapter is a little different than most. I wanted to jump forward a few years, but instead of just leaving a bunch of empty space, I decided to do it this way so we could sort of 'check in' every now and then to see where Michael is and what he is doing. I thought a good way to do that would be through his birthday calls to his mother.**


	13. Catalyst

**XIII. Catalyst**

 _February 14, 1989._

 _Mshauri, South Africa._

Mshauri changed my understanding of the world. When I first saw their faces gathered at the side of the road, bandaged and starving with guns clutched in their hands and babies at wasting breasts, I felt something foreign burning inside. I had been to Russia, put bullets in politicians and burned hostile camps to the ground, and I had watched my best friend bleed to death in the desert, and I had listened to my brother cry when my dad slapped him in the face – but this was new. I had never felt this blend of a strong desire to help, and such a pure, unchecked rage.

It was a town under siege. Instead of one hand to reach out and grab, one person to drag out of the writhing tides of war, there were hundreds. Instead of one voice crying out injustice, begging for food, pleading for allies, there were dozens of them blending into a chorus. It was impossible to understand them all, impossible to spread pity over all of these waiting faces.

We were only in the town for half an hour, pausing to breathe, and then we were off to free their neighbors from a large group of hostiles. Mshauri was peaceful right now, it's corpses hidden away, but it showed me profound suffering.

We walked together, ten of us, and the people touched out shoulders and backs, murmuring to themselves, maybe praying for their neighbors. I made it a point to look at all of their faces, because in training my instructors put a big emphasis on the casualties of war. It looked like this, it smelled like this, it felt like this. It fueled the rage, fueled my need to chase the enemy from this area and kill as many as I could in the process.

Neely was our squad leader, twelve years in special forces with guerilla war as a specialty. I was one of the youngest there, fresh out of the cold wastes of Russia, and I had only been in the special forces for a year. I was in the back, the tail of our party, and he was in the front. We were one of four squads, all moving in from different directions, like missiles honed in on the besieged village in this remote part of the world.

Forty people marching through a jungle.

We never saw the attack coming.

One moment I was following behind Cooper, watching his helmet bob against a lush green background, and the next he was gone and the greenery was popping and shredding.

Gunfire.

I dove, landing hard on a root and rolling over it to take cover. Bullets rained from every direction, and smoke, and sound, and the light of the canopy grew more intense. Beyond the thunder there was shouting – English and something else – and groans and plants snapping and boots thumping.

Bodies moved everywhere. I staggered upright, grabbing the non-ally I could and wrenching the gun from his hand. He hit the ground, rolled, and pulled a pistol from his belt. I went for the nearest tree, the nearest cover, and felt my vest get tagged on the way.

His pistol emptied into the tree trunk and he lunged for Cooper, who lay in a mass on the forest floor, trying to get to his gun. I ducked out and fired, and sprayed him down.

He crumpled like a ragdoll to the jungle floor.

And then the explosion came.

I got the sensation of flying. My heart beat in slow motion. My arms flailed and I saw clouds, and earth, and clouds, and earth. I landed with my mouth open, my jaw lodged into the soil, my hand twisted unnaturally around a rifle. Everything went eerily, painfully silent.

Something in me decided to count the seconds.

One.

Fourteen.

Seventy-six.

Gradually, like emerging from deep water, I began to hear again. Leaves crunching, foreign voices murmuring in another language.

And then I could see.

Leaves, spattered with blood – my blood – and dirt smeared over my contorted wrist. A forest floor with boots moving about, and the bodies of my squad lying all around.

With no sense but survival, I stayed absolutely still and watched the boots walk past me. I kept my eyes open, imitating Cooper, who lay a few yards away. Eyes open, heart hammering, wrist throbbing, I lay there for countless seconds.

The boots walked past, away, and the race was on.

I wrenched my arm free and scrambled to my feet, staggering one way and then the other, crashing into a tree, snapping a vine. I ran like a child, with no mind for where I was going. I had images burned into my mind, bodies lying on the ground – nine of them wearing faded green camouflage. Bile bubbled up in my stomach and covered the front of my uniform.

Before long the pain found me.

I was hit. My whole torso was burning. I clawed at my vest, trying to get it off, to dig the bullet out of it while still running, but I stopped paying attention to the ground and tripped over a root. I stayed down, jerking my shirt open to find some relief.

There was a hole in my vest.

A strange wonder filled me as I pulled my uniform gently away from my chest. I had a hole in my stomach. My undershirt was soaked with blood. It ran down my belt, over my pants, and turned everything a dark burgundy. Just looking at it made me nauseous.

"Oh, God," I whispered, forgetting everything but this oddity, "Oh, God… Oh, God…"

It started throbbing, and I felt lightheaded. Gradually, the adrenaline faded, and fear and grief found me again. Everyone was dead. Everyone in my squad was dead. Were the other teams ambushed as well? Were there other survivors? Were they looking for me?

Precious minutes passed and the sound of another language and boots crunching was almost enough to get me to my feet. I made it halfway upright before I slumped back down and the pain in my stomach brought tears to my eyes. So I sat there, fat drops on my face, and waited for them to find me and put a bullet in the back of my head.

I saw them through the trees, formed up in a line, scanning the woods and waving powerful automatic weapons back and forth. No wonder they were able to take out my squad so easily – they had weapons that could mow down crowds of people in seconds. One of them spotted me and raised his gun, whistling and pointing to the others. For a few moments they waited, trying to suss out if this was a trap, and then they advanced.

Years of training, of fighting, of killing, and in the end I was just a scared kid with my hands in the air and tears on my face.

Two combatants broke out of line to come toward me and the line reassembled itself. The remaining soldiers fanned out to compensate for the missing members, and they passed right by, continuing their search. They obviously didn't think much of me, either.

I stood face-to-face with two jacked commandos, regretting my decision to join the military for the first time. My experience in combat could be summed up in a few hostile takeovers, one raid, and armed prisoner transport. I had never been so close to death, and I was terrified.

The one on the right, a black-skinned hulk of a man holding an assault rifle with both hands, used the barrel of his gun to tip my chin up. He scowled and said something in another language. I recognized the dialect as a local one, but I had heard very little of it.

"Wait," I said, my voice trembling. I knew I sounded like a kid, but I tried to force an edge into my words. "D-D-Don't kill me."

Hulk looked at his friend, a lanky, tattooed, bulldog-faced man, and scowled, but there was no malice in the expression. He did this out of obligation, not for enjoyment. I was nothing to him. I shut my eyes, putting everything I had into keeping the tears out of my eyes. I thought of anything but this moment. I thought of everything except a face full of lead.

Two gunshots went off, muffled by a silencer, and my attackers fell to the ground.

Blood sprayed over me, entering my next panicked breaths. I kept my trembling hands up, staring at the corpse that might have killed me by now, if someone had not gotten to him first.

Like an angel come to deliver me from darkness, a man in American camouflage emerged from the woods. He was holding a rifle, looking strangely calm in this hostile place, with no blood or dirt on his uniform. For a moment it seemed like a merciful mirage.

And then his backup arrived.

Four men in black combat gear moved like wraiths through the forest, holding camo nets embedded with leaves over their heads and wielding nothing more than handguns. Three broke away to clear the area and the fourth hung around, making slow circles around me and the man who had saved my life.

The leader crouched down in front of me, looking right into my eyes.

"Easy, kid," he said, his voice rough. He was in his thirties, maybe, with short, non-military issue brown hair and gray eyes. I only saw them for a second before the ground rushed up. He caught me by the arm and laid me out on my back, easing me to the ground.

I barely managed, "I have to get back to my unit. We're taking fire. We're taking fire."

"Step one, shut your mouth." The man seemed unconcerned by my pleas, and when I tried to move, to leave, he held me down by one shoulder. "What's your name? Where are you from?"

"Why does that-"

"Name, kid. Give me something."

"Michael."

"Well, Michael, you got yourself into a lot of trouble out here."

"We have to go back!"

The man had empathy in his eyes, but everything else about him was business. "I approve of your loyalty, Michael, but everyone out there is dead." He dug through his bag, placing medical supplies on the ground near me. "I'm gonna patch you up, and you're going to limp to the nearest installment. You gotta report this catastrophe while the rest of us deal with this mess."

"What? I can't… I was shot!"

"You weren't shot in the _leg_ , were you?"

"Who are you? What company did you-?"

In one quick motion, as quick as a snake, the man reached up and flicked me in the ear. He waggled his finger. "First thing's first, how far up did they hit you?"

I got an uneasy feeling in my stomach. "Less than a mile from the village."

"Ahh." He smiled grimly as he broke the safety seal on a bottle of alcohol. He poured it over my stomach and the burning was horrific, but I did my best not to react. He went on, "Listen, kid, sometimes a tactical retreat is just preparation for a later victory. Never let your fear of losing keep you from running away when you need to, because you only lose when you die. Got it?"

I nodded, clenching my jaw to keep myself from groaning.

"I like you, Michael. You got guts. But going back out there would be suicide, and I think you have a long life ahead of you."

He worked quickly, quietly, and announced that the wound was painful but not life threatening – so long as I listened to him and 'hobbled' to the nearest US camp. He helped me stand, and loaded my jacket pocket up with painkillers, and splinted my stomach to keep it from gushing blood.

When he was done, he started walking away, just like that.

I called after him, "Which direction is Mshauri?"

He circled back, nodding to himself in a strange way, and pulled his dog tags from around his neck. He put them gently over my head, and tucked them into the front of my uniform. With a sullen face, and a voice soft like the grave, he said, "Kid, that place was the first to go."

I had been there ten minutes ago. "We were just-"

"Bunch of villagers with thirty-year-old rifles and no training," he went on, patting me hard on the shoulder and almost knocking me over. "It happens."

"But… where do I go?"

"Walk that way, find a road, and commandeer a vehicle. Get yourself closer to the coast, and identify yourself as an American to the local militia – the ones in red."

"But-"

"One more pro tip for the road. Let it go. People die all the time, every second of every day. If you wanna cry, you wait until the mission is over. Until then, get your ass in gear."

I had the image of Mshauri in my head, a besieged village, those sad faces. I felt their hands running along my uniform, felt their hope as my unit came through to help them and liberate their neighbors. He had to be mistaken. How could all of that disappear so quickly?

The man put his hand on my shoulder and squeezed, "If you make it back in one piece, you tell 'em Larry sent you, and I have this all under control."


	14. Odious

**XIV. Odious**

I was in a hospital tent. It was the kind erected in a hurry and torn down a few days later, to be carried on the backs of its former patients to some other wet battlefield. Red splattered the bleached canvas walls, and low cots sat in two rows of eight. On each cot, a perfectly human-shaped bundle lay wrapped in formerly white sheets, now yellowed with age and marred with holes. I was the only exception, tucked off to the side, lying on my back with my abdomen wrapped in bandages and doing everything I could to keep my mind occupied. I lay stiff as a board, like my fellows all around, and cried when no one was looking.

 _You should count yourself lucky you survived, with an injury like this._

I was lucky. Whenever he came in to check on me, the doctor put his hand on my shoulder and told me over and over how lucky I was. He explained in great detail what had happened in that jungle, how rapidly my friends had fallen, how _lucky_ I was that the landmine had gone off when it did. He said I was lucky my hearing came back in the days after I woke, and lucky I had come across the mystery man in the woods, who they knew _of_ , but could not explain to me.

But the whole idea made me sick. With the pain, there was a profound guilt. I had missed most of the shots aimed at me, while some of my squad mates had returned riddled with bullets. In the explosion, instead of breaking my leg, I sprained my wrist. How did that make me worthy of surviving? Some of those men had wives and children, brothers and sisters, mothers and fathers who loved them. I lay awake for hours wishing they had lived and I had not, and then hours more wondering if there was really life after death, like my mother wanted to believe.

I was wrapped in these thoughts the first few times Larry came to visit. He showed up on the fourth day, put his hand on my head, remarked "You are one tough son of a bitch," and then talked to the doctor for a while. He came again two days later, looking rougher, his uniform a little less crisp, and sat by my cot for a while, talking about things that I barely heard.

On the eleventh day, the fog cleared, and his entrance provided a needed relief from the plain silence of the tent. He was crisp again, clear, and smiling.

"You look like you finally waded out of that mud, kid."

Larry was a part of my thoughts on the hardest days. I questioned why he saved me, how he had known where I was, and why he had sent me off alone with a hole in my stomach. I could have died. I should have died. In some dreams he was the hero, and in my nightmares he was the jovial villain, clean cut and sympathetic, but determined to make me live through this.

He was older than me, his hair longer than military-issue, combed back, resting above his ears and puffing at the top. His uniform was camo, but vague when it came to rank. He looked so out of place in the jungle, and his nonchalance was haunting. I had so many questions, but all that came out of my mouth was a raspy, "Why?"

His face changed, and he seemed to know what I meant, even though I scarcely knew. He sat beside my cot, crossing his legs on the ground, and set those grey eyes on me.

"We heard the gunfire, and I saw you in the woods."

Again, and louder, " _Why_?"

"Nothing but luck. I know that's not what you want to hear, but it's true." Larry had a grim voice, his mouth in a flat line, his cheeks worn with scowling wrinkles.

It must have been what my mind wanted to know, because that sent a jolt through me. I had no more tears, not after mourning them every day since I woke, but if it was still possible this information made me feel emptier.

Larry saw that, and he said, "Save me all that existential shit, and try to hear what I'm saying. Everyone is dead. All of them. You survived. There's nothing you can do to bring them back, nothing you can do to help. Some of them are on planes headed back to the States and some of them are rotting out there with maggots in their eye sockets – and there's _nothing you can do_."

His words were biting, but they unlocked a new feeling inside. It was not just grief and guilt anymore, but anger. Pure, red rage.

Larry's eyes glinted like a cat's, "But you can avenge them. I know you want to. I see it in you. You want to fill that void inside, let go of all this frustration, blow some gibberish-speaking thugs' brains all over the ground. You want justice."

He was right. I wanted to find the people who did this and kill them. I wanted to forsake the goodness that my mother insisted she saw in me and blanket the enemy with bullets.

Larry pulled a small flask from his chest pocket and took a swig, a dark emotion in the backs of those grey eyes. His thoughts were impossible to read. "I read your file while you were getting your beauty sleep. You spent a lot of time in Russia, a few weeks in the Far East. You lost a man out there, too. War is a tough business."

Ford was the first, and now there were more. I could see their faces, their smile, hear their voices alongside the crackle of a fire – whispering, murmuring, gurgling.

Larry went on, "We have a mutual friend. Your drill sergeant in Basic."

His words surprised me, "You know McKinney?"

"I was a marine, once upon a time. We served together." Larry smiled a grim sort of smile, and took another, longer drink. "McKinney was a straight-shooter, as tight-laced as anyone. When they told me you made it back, and I found that old man in your file, I thought it had to be destiny."

"What?"

"You and I, crossing paths." Larry set his flask down, and held out his hand. "Michael Westen, it is an honor to meet you. My name is Larry Sizemore, and I'm a spy."

I took his hand before he finished talking, and jerked it away when he was done. _A spy?_ He had to be joking. When I heard that word I thought of crisp black suits and gadgets, and fancy drinks in wide-rimmed glasses, not a guy in camo pants gulping liquor in South Africa. He was just wasting time, time that I could be using to get back on my feet and hunt those monsters down.

Larry smiled at my reaction, at my impatience, "You and I have a lot to talk about, but consider surviving that gunshot your first test. You passed." He got to his feet, gazed at his flask for a moment, and then decided against drinking anymore. "McKinney ever show you that stupid lighter of his?"

Numbly, I nodded.

Larry snorted, and then looked sidelong at the bodies to the right of him, tucked and folded like oddly-shaped bedsheets. "It was an anti-protest saying, against the hippies and do-nothings who sat at home with their signs while American soldiers were dying. I was sixteen when I went to war, and we chanted it back at those tie-dyed bastards."

And then he did the oddest thing. He laughed, and the smile on his face was genuine. He looked at those bodies and repeated that saying with a dim, dry tone.

" _We the unwilling, led by the unqualified, to kill the unfortunate, die for the ungrateful_." Larry looked back at me, and dropped that smile, and seemed sinister all of the sudden. "Your superior is gonna come by later and ask you if you want to ship home. I want you to say no. You have to man up, got it?"

I nodded, having had no intention of going home after I recovered.

"This bullshit general they sent tried to let this whole thing go for a little diplomacy."

"What do you mean?" I sat up, and then dropped myself back onto the cot when pain shot through my abdomen. He couldn't be serious.

"I _mean_ , they wanna sweep all this under the rug." Larry motioned to the bodies, and then settled on me. "But you can sleep easy. I took my boys out there the day before yesterday and wiped that little guerilla group off the playing field. That's my gift to you."

I thought of the flashing, the unknown faces, the shouting in the jungle, and the cold eyes of the people they had taken from me. I thought of the village, Mshauri, of the way it felt when their hands touched my arms as I walked past. His words gave me a strange satisfaction, and also a chill, because he had killed over a dozen people. And he was calling it a gift.

"Rest up, kid. I'll be in touch."

"But you said…"

"You'll get your revenge. It doesn't stop here, Michael. The world is full of scum. We make up for the people we lose one mission at a time."

And just like that, Larry was gone. He slipped out of the back of the tent, and the nurse looked up briefly before going back to work on his clipboard. I was left there with the bodies, with the people I had come to this country with, and a hole in my stomach.


	15. The Fire

**The Fire.**

 **South Africa.**

 **March, 1989.**

Mshauri had been reduced to nothing, in the most literal sense. Where there had once been houses and huts, little fires with spits of meat turning over them, modern clothes hanging on decades-old lines, and little radios crackling with news of the war, there was only ash. Even the surrounding forest had been burned, the trees felled, their trunks cracked and flattened. Near where the village might have started, where we marched that day, the remains were laid out like jigsaw puzzles with half the pieces missing.

It had been raining for days when I was first allowed back, and the ash rose up in the rainwater and ran as a river past my boots, crowding the corpses, rushing down into the charred edges of the jungle. It was plain old rain, chilly as the mountains all around, but it felt as thick as blood on my face. Even the sound of water crashing down on displaced tin roofs could not drown out the screaming. Caterwauling. Crying. Guns going off and bodies thumping to the ground. One last breath coming out of Ford, in a sort of hiccup, as his body finally relaxed.

I knew the only sound was the rain, but inside I heard their final moments playing out over and over again. I felt the heat of the fire through the cold. I saw the blurry faces of their attackers, streaming out of the trees, and the empty eyes of the fallen.

"I told you not to come back here."

His voice came through water, from a thousand miles away, but somehow it broke through the orchestra playing in my head. Wilkins. He had survived one of the ambushes, and joined the retaliatory strike on the militia days later, while I was recovering.

He looked smaller when he was wet, with his uniform pressing down heavily on his frame. It weighed down his eyes, too, and his mouth, making him look sad.

"I told you not to come back here," he repeated, gentler this time. It was the tone they kept using with me, like they were afraid harsh words would shatter whatever pieces of my head I had managed to glue back together.

Wilkins was not like me. He avoided looking around, and focused mostly on his gun, a rifle he grasped in both hands until the veins hardened under his skin. He was in charge of me now and he wanted to stay away from here, but someone overrode his order and I was allowed to come and survey the destruction. In my written request, I stated it was essential to my recovery.

It was, in a way. Coming here woke the anger, so the cold could not touch me. I wasn't afraid, or ashamed, or upset by this, I was enraged. It was fuel, added carefully to the fire inside.

Maybe he saw that. Wilkins was a smart man, a caring man. One look at the lines of bodies made his whole frame shiver. Or maybe that was the rain. "Your orders came in, finally."

He had my attention, at last, when it had strayed so much in these last few days. It was hard to think when every word sounded like gunfire. But these words came through clearly, dimming the sounds of the village dying. Just like that, their hopeful hands fell from my shoulders, and the rain was just rain, and the bodies were just bodies.

Wilkins beckoned me back toward the jeep, the muddy all-terrain vehicle that had brought us here. One of the other affected soldiers was sitting in the back, looking out the window at the mess that used to be a village. His leg had been irreparably damaged by shrapnel.

"One last look, boys," Wilkins said, waving off the village as the jeep roared to life.

Fuller tapped the window, snorting, "What a victory to go home with."

Wilkins grimaced. Fuller was only here because he had nothing better to do while he waited to be shipped home. He volunteered for every outing, sat in the back of whatever vehicle, and made cynical comments until the other soldiers told him to shut up.

"What are my orders?" I asked Wilkins. We bounced around the edge of the village, and the bodies caught my eye again. "I put in to stay here."

"Someone thought that was a bad idea, soldier," Wilkins responded. Most of his focus had to go into driving this terrible terrain, but he still managed to offer me an explanation. "Best thing for you right now is a change of scenery."

"I don't want a change of scenery."

"Well, too bad. Orders are in. You'll be on your way to Washington come tomorrow."

None of that made sense. "Are you kidding?"

"No." Wilkins glanced over and gave a sort of half-smile. "You sent in a letter of interest a few months ago. Remember that?"

Everything had come out of focus when the ambush happened. I did remember that letter. It was to express interest in joining Delta Force, to continue my special forces training. But it felt like someone else had sent that letter, had that dream. When I tried to work up excitement, all I got was frustration. Months spent training, again, when there was work to be done here.

"You had a personal recommendation, by the way," Wilkins added, as if he sensed my disappointment, my frustration. "Your buddy Larry."

I would hardly call Larry my buddy. He saved my life in the jungle, and nearly sent me to my death right after. He came to the hospital, claimed to be a spy, and then disappeared. But the other soldiers seemed to know who he was, though no one could quite put their finger on who he worked for. He just seemed to have clearance whenever he asked for it. He got what he wanted. Wilkins spoke with something close to reverence.

It was a quiet ride from then on, because it took careful concentration and an hour of maneuvering to get back down the mountain, and because we both told Fuller to shut up every time he opened his mouth. No one needed to hear his sad remarks.

We were back at the temporary base, where I had been hospitalized and where more forces had congregated for the next task in this forsaken jungle, when I finally spoke again.

"Do you think they feel it, when it kills them?"

Wilkins shut the jeep off, and Fuller hobbled out of the backseat to annoy whoever crossed his path next. While the engine was doing its final whirs, Wilkins said, "When what kills them?"

"A bullet, to the head."

I was thinking about death, because it was all there was today. Death and destruction. Maybe in the coming weeks it would fade from my mind, and that fire inside would die down a little, but now the curiosity and confusion were fresh.

"Maybe, but only for a second."

When the bodies were recovered in Mshauri, most of the male victims had been killed by shots to the head. It was the women who suffered, and the children. But that was not something I wanted to bring up again. I would never be able to put that to words.

"Do you believe in Heaven?"

Wilkins thought on this one for a little while, drumming his fingers on the steering wheel. He wore a cross around his neck, but that little emblem meant nothing in the face of what we had seen. He never even looked at it, never touched it.

"I think… it would be a mercy, if there was something like that. I hope there is." Wilkins looked over with those sad eyes, which I thought might never be happy again. He could be a million miles away from this place and yet still never escape it. He just cared too much. "If it is real, those people are there now, finally resting. If not, then their suffering is over."

It was not the answer I wanted. What did I want to hear, anyway? Did I really care about the people who had died, or did I just want them to stop haunting me?

"Mshauri was impoverished, besieged." Wilkins looked back at the steering wheel, now really trying to convince himself. "For years, they suffered. Even if something like this had not happened, they would be gone soon. Disease. Starvation."

Finally, I realized what was really bothering me.

"We'll never know, because they never had a chance."

I left the jeep, left the warmth of it, and walked back into the rain. I let myself get soaked again, appreciating the chill to soothe the fire inside, and retreated to my tent. I got to live alone because of my nightmares. One night they were so violent I flipped my cot into the wall and nearly broke the neck of the first soldier to come to my rescue. So I slept alone, without my gun, in a tent near the edge of the encampment. I ate alone, and cried alone, and denied all charges of being broken – it was getting better, one day at a time. Wilkins thought I was sad, but mostly I felt worthless, powerless, and frustrated.

In the days that followed, I prepared for my new mission in the only way I could think of. From dawn until dusk, until the fire inside died down into an ember and the trembling stopped me from walking a straight line, I trained. Running. Climbing. Marksmanship. The surrounding jungle provided plenty of opportunities to learn new skills. Physical exertion kept my mind off of the village, and my superiors seemed pleased that I was no longer sitting idle. Each night I lay alone in my tent, nude, radiating heat, feeling like a cartoon who had run his limbs down to nubs, and each morning I rose to the trumpet and started over again.

It was harder to cope on the plane, where we had to stay strapped in for hours and hours and the only soldier who talked was Fuller. Everyone else was either traumatized or infirm or dead, just bodies riding home.

He was cynical and annoying and never shut up when he should, but Fuller helped me come back into myself. He talked and talked about nonsensical things, giving me something to respond to, someone to hold a dialogue with. He whined about the food, I told him to shut up and eat. He whined about the hospital they were transferring him to, I told him to shut up and be grateful he was even alive. He whined about my tone, and I spent an hour trying to kick him from across the plane.

Right before we landed, while picking at the cast they had used to immobilize his injured leg, Fuller said very seriously, "Listen, when they ask about your dreams, tell them you sleep fine. Everything is fine. You've never felt better."

I had spoken very little about how I felt, and only then to the doctor in South Africa. His words startled me. "Why?"

"You wanna end up like me? Shut away in a nut house?"

I shook my head impulsively. No. I never wanted to end up like Fuller, with his bad leg and his sad eyes and the way just sitting up seemed to hurt his soul.

"Okay, then. Everything is fine. Go and have a good life."

We landed half an hour later, and while Fuller moaned in pain while he was extracted, I went silently with the soldiers who were escorting me from the plane. Families were gathered, waiting, and my escorts and I stopped behind them to salute as the dead soldiers were taken down the ramp. I didn't know them, had no idea what company they were with or how they had died in that awful jungle, but seeing them brought out that way brought tears to my eyes.

For some strange reason I searched the crowd for my mother. She had no idea I was back in the States, no reason to be here, but a childish compulsion made my eyes rove the crowd. One day those sad faces and sorrowful moans might belong to her, as they wheeled my body down a ramp and handed her a folded up flag.

It wasn't fair, the way those soldiers died.

The fire inside grew hungry for vengeance.


	16. The Spook

**A/N: Apologies for the long absence. I've been in the hospital with a nasty case of pneumonia and I'm still recovering from it.**

 **XxX**

 **The Spook.**

 **December of 1989.**

 **Kenya.**

In the southeastern corner of Kenya, on the edge of an unforgiving desert, a team of French surveyors were the first to discover oil. It was there, in the midst several age-old cities, that a man called Dubwana first rose to power. He was a warlord in every sense of the word – he had his loyal followers, his paid supporters, and a healthy portion of the government willing to look the other way to stay off of his naughty list. He saw an opportunity and he took it, steamrolling through the cities in his path and seizing the resource for himself.

He had no photograph on file, only a sketch done based on witness accounts. Some said he was tall and fearsome, dressed only in a loin cloth with tribal tattoos covering most of his body, but others said he was small and polite at first, well-dressed and well-spoken. Witness accounts only ever agreed on one thing. He had cold eyes, and his very presence was unnerving.

His file sat open on my lap as the helicopter touched down in a cyclone of sand. Burrey, Ted, and Mercer hopped out ahead of me, dressed down in white and gray camouflage with assault rifles swinging on their backs and shaded goggles over their eyes. We assembled in a line, handing our briefing files over to our squad chief as he hopped out behind us. It was hard to see anything beyond the mess kicked up by the helicopter, but as it soared off and the dust settled, a new world opened up. Sadler stored our folders in his backpack, heaved it onto his shoulders, and yanked off his goggles, surveying the horizon with beady blue eyes.

"God, I hate the desert," he remarked, pulling his goggles the rest of the way off his head so sand popped out of his rust-colored hair. "Burrey, take Westen and find our quarters. Lug these bags over and then report to Command. Ted, you get your eager ass over to the mess hall and get me a time on the next meal, I'm starving. Mercer, with me."

I had been in delta force for four months, its most junior member, but with seven fast-paced missions under my belt already, it felt like I had been with them my whole life. I knew these men backwards and forwards, their likes and dislikes, their most irritating and endearing qualities. Sadler was unfiltered and bold, Mercer was quiet and brutal, Ted was always energized and much more dangerous than he looked, and Burrey was broad, like a grizzly in camo, a seasoned warrior who could spot a mistake at two miles on a clear day.

We faced our new surroundings together, the grizzly and I, like we had seven times already this year. It was a throw-together military base, made up entirely of six-foot high canvas tents the color of sun-bleached sand, freshly dug bunkers, and patrolling soldiers. In this quarter mile stretch of desert, you could find more firepower than in most developing countries.

Burrey led the way, lugging three bags on his shoulders, through a swath of soldiers and equipment. I was trained to be impassive, to drive my emotions and not let them drive me, but I was young and the machinery in this place was incredible. Heavy artillery and anti-air guns sat waiting along the edges of the base, alert to dangers, heads on the swivel, and snipers sat in towers at six points around us, only the tips of their high-powered rifles visible through heavy, sand-colored tarps. Platoons of troops jogged between the tents, holding guns, shouting orders, and in the rare moments when the human voices laxed, a helicopter buzzed in the distance.

"Something-" I began, but Burrey slapped me on the back of the head and motioned to a tent marked with the delta symbol.

It was cramped inside, but my unit had once slept back-to-back-to-back in a tugboat going up the Amazon river and space was never a problem. Burrey claimed the bunk to the right of the entrance flap by dropping his own bag on it. He dispersed the others, and I copied him with my own bags.

"Something must be happening," I continued.

Burrey nodded. "Probably conflicts with the locals."

"But we-"

"We invited ourselves, Westen." Burrey shooed me out of the tent and started off again, his tone shutting down any further questions.

It was never mentioned in the briefing folder, but I had learned as early as basic training that army operations were often met with resistance in certain parts of the world. It all depended on the people, how armed they were, how independent they wanted to be. It wasn't my job to have an opinion, but the whole thing made me weary.

We got a lot of looks as we crossed the base this time. I followed closely behind Burrey, feeling smaller than ever under the scrutinizing eyes of older, wiser soldiers. We were dressed like them for the most part, just white and gray instead of white and yellow, but each of our squad wore a black delta symbol over our hearts. We wore a lot of things on missions, but these were standard for working in a base. I had rarely gotten to wear mine. It still looked new, black and shiny, as glossy as it had been the day I stood proudly while a tailor sewed it onto my chest.

Burrey stopped by the largest tent, which had to be Command – the tent orders came from – and stood respectfully beside the door, as stiff as a soldier with his drill sergeant berating him. I was looser, standing with my fingers thrumming idly on my belt, getting another look around.

Beyond the borders of this tented city, the desert stretched out for countless miles. It was like an ocean made entirely of melted caramel, baking in the sun. It was only in the seventies outside, but it was a dry heat. We had just finished a mission in Brazil, where it rained nearly every day and the humidity was incredible. I marveled at the contrast, at the dizzying pace of my new career, and at the impossible variety this world had to offer.

"First time in the desert, Westen?" Burrey asked.

I shook my head, and then hastily nodded. It was my first time in this environment, but not my first time in Africa. I was never sure what they meant when they said 'the desert.' Sadler used the term to refer to most of the Middle East and all of southern Africa.

"I was in South Africa."

"How did you like it?"

"Not at all," I said, my tone biting.

He said nothing else, but looked out at the desert thoughtfully. I wondered suddenly how many times he had been here, and under what circumstances.

Sadler and Mercer stepped out of the Command tent before I could say anything. Sadler looked murderous. "We got a spook running us."

"What?" I said automatically.

"Spy," Burrey said.

Sadler snorted. "I know how to run an op without a spook crawling up my ass."

"If that were true, I think I might be out of a job."

Larry Sizemore stepped out of the tent, smiling wickedly.

He was as strangely out of place here as he had been years ago when I met him in the wake of Mshauri. His hair was combed back, a sleek brown, and his eyes were as gray as the details on my uniform. He was the opposite of every other soldier on this base – relaxed. He was the one who saved me from the massacre at Mshauri, not the one to commit the crime, but I bristled at the sight of him. His face was a reminder of those piles of bodies, the gunshots ringing through the forest, the cold dead eyes of my brothers as they fell to an ambush.

Sadler rolled his eyes and glared at the spy, looking like he wanted nothing more than to sock him in the jaw. "No offense, but this is a hostile takeover, not-"

"Oh, no offense at all," Larry interrupted, looking positively unbothered, "But you and I are going to be working together and I think whoever put that in motion had a plan. Don't you?"

Sadler curled his lip.

"I just wanna get this op over with. I'm supposed to be on a beach in Mexico right now, knee-deep in whores and tequila. But some upper management son of a bitch wanted this mission to take top priority – so here I am." Larry laughed, carefree, and seemed to take no notice of the hostility brimming around him. "Shall we convene in your tent?"

Sadler led the way, grudgingly, with Mercer falling into step behind him. I fell behind Burrey, joining the spy who strolled at the back of the line.

He smiled at me, "Nice to see you're still alive, kid."

I was curious about him, about what he had been doing since we met in South Africa, but for some reason none of my questions would come out. His presence here was no coincidence. He had said he would be in touch the last time we spoke.

"How are you feeling?" Larry asked out of nowhere.

He stumped me. "What?"

"Last time we met, you were recovering from a bullet in the gut and pissed off at the world."

"Oh." It felt like a lifetime ago. Since then I had crossed continents. His question brought out a blunt truth, "I feel… nothing."

"It stays with you a while, that numbness. You have that anger balled up inside. If my plan falls through you might get to let some of it out. I'll let you take the shot, if it comes to that."

His words came as we arrived at the tent, and all I could do was stare at him while everyone got sorted inside. What was he saying? He would let me be the one to kill Dubwana? Did I really want to do that? I had never met the man. I had only read about him in a folder on a helicopter.

Ted rejoined us just as Larry finished unfolding several maps and laying them out on a cot for the squad to look at. Larry went right into his presentation. "I want to divert his resources. He puts all his labor into protection and drilling, so he has to have his food brought in from nearby villages – by force, of course. If we cut off all of his supply lines, we can draw out chunks of his army and neutralize them."

Sadler wondered, "What about the villagers? If they stop cooperating with him, he could retaliate. We would need units stationed in each of the supply villages, and even then-"

"Did you read your orders?" Larry cut in sharply, his face changing so quickly that it seemed he had donned a mask. For a split second he looked absolutely vicious, and then, like I had been imagining it, he put on a tired expression. "Collateral damage is a risk we have to take."

It looked like Sadler might respond, but the seconds ticked on and he stayed silent.

Larry spoke instead. "We capture this resource at any cost. We can interrogate civilians who've been in his stronghold and figure out the best way to breach."

His plan went on in extravagant detail. He showed us more maps, drew lines around the stronghold, and set aside squadrons of soldiers to take key points. It was impossible not to be awed by him, the way his eyes flashed at each clever addition to his plot, the way he planned to make Dubwana stretch out his limbs so we could lop them off one at a time. It was genius. He wanted to spread false information, to send civilians in with reports of non-existent raids, to make it seem like some of Dubwana's soldiers had turned against him and started working with the Americans. This, he said, would inspire Dubwana to take rash action, to expose himself.

It was such an elaborate plan that I could hardly imagine it coming to fruition. It had too many moving pieces and too many if-then scenarios. How could he know how Dubwana would react?

His long explanation ended, and Ted reported that dinner was being served. Starving from the trip, my squad left to eat. I stayed with Larry, and voiced my concerns.

Larry looked pleased by the question. "Warlords are an archetype, kid. You can think of any person that way. You have your soldiers, your civilians, your mothers and fathers, your religious figures, your presidents and chiefs… Everybody has certain traits that make them a little predictable. Warlords, for example, are power-hungry, and power-hungry people are obsessed with loyalty. Without a trusted inner circle, power is limited. So they build up their little empire of followers and demand total dedication. If somebody falls out of line, the punishment is severe. If enough people fall out of line, he starts to wonder… what if there's an uprising coming? What if my friends are really my enemies? What if the people I trust most are out to get me?"

Everything he said made sense, but it also produced a nagging doubt in me. He had to be wrong. People were unique and surprising. Could it really be that simple?

Larry tapped me on the knee with one of his folded maps, smiling, "Reading people comes with experience, kid. One day you might be able to look at someone and see their intentions written on their face, clear as day."

I tried that on Larry, and I got warmth in return. He was more welcoming of curiosity than Burrey. "Will we be able to kill him? I mean, the guy has an army, and thousands of guns."

Larry considered me for a long, trying moment, and then laughed. "Kid, let me tell you something. Guns make people stupid. It's best to fight your wars with intelligence – something a lot of people lack. You get a big group of beefy guys and give them rifles, and what do you have?"

I shrugged, "Security guards?"

"You have dominoes, kid, just waiting to be knocked down."

Finally, the questions I wanted to ask in the beginning came back to me. "You said you were a spy. What does that mean? What do you do? Is it like in the movies?"

"It means I have… unconventional assignments, like you and your squad here. Except you and your buddies have a big, classified manifesto of all your comings and goings. I do what needs to be done, without official involvement from the home front, if you get that."

I nodded, though the whole thing was still unclear. His words inspired something in me. I was reminded of what he said after Mshauri, how the world was full of scum, and we made up for the people we lost one mission at a time. Was that what he did? He went around the world, destroying monsters like the ones who had leveled that village? He walked with such freedom, spoke with such candor, and seemed so perfectly unburdened by this mission. He was not numb like me, not bitter like Sadler, not tired and beaten down like the other soldiers on this base.

He must have seen the curiosity and desire in my eyes, because he smiled again, almost victoriously, and said, "It's gonna be a pleasure working with you, kid."


	17. Master Class

**Master Class.**

 **March of 1990.**

 **Kenya.**

"Guys like this are trained to give misinformation…"

Larry was not looking when he pulled the trigger, and he barely noticed as the bound man collapsed. He was defeated, and now, destroyed.

"… half-truths…"

He fired again, into the chest of the next in line, who had been a corpse before the lesson began. His body jumped and grew still.

"…to stop death from coming…"

Larry paused at the third, who had led the platoon, and pressed the hot tip of his gun to an already bloodied forehead. His comrades were defeated, but this man looked defiant. He held himself there, upright, while the metal singed his skin. Larry fired, and the force of the bullet threw the defiant man down, and took the fight out of him.

"…to wait for rescue…"

He walked down the line, to the fourth, the fifth, and the sixth, and took the fight out of them as well, until only the dead or dying remained.

It was at the eighth, the spy, that Larry finally looked back at me. He toyed with his handgun, now down to two bullets, maybe one, if I had counted wrong, and let out a casual sigh that was out of place in this hellish setting.

"We show up with a mission to complete, and sometimes we have to forget about diplomacy and all that bureaucratic bullshit, and just get it done. Guys like this are here to stop us, to make us wait, to sit on their asses in handcuffs while our targets move further and further away, while our brothers and sisters are dying."

"You disarmed them," I argued, feebly, because there was little left to say in defense of the dead bodies left in his wake. If I had spoken sooner, they might have lived.

Larry nodded thoughtfully, handing his gun to me, and motioning to the spy. "I did. He helped. Our little friend here gave us their location, told us their weaknesses. He drew me a damn map! Look at him. Look how smug he is, sitting there while his friends die around him."

I was looking at the spy, and I saw no smugness, only terror. He must have expected this to go differently. Larry had tied him up like all the others, put him in this horrible assembly line, shoved a gag in his mouth so he couldn't plead for his life. Larry must have promised to arrest the combatants, and to let the spy go free. He must have promised something other than what this turned out to be – a slaughter. His words run in my head, ' _Whatever happens, you just follow me, kid, and keep your mouth shut_.'

We had strolled right up to the platoon, and I followed the orders Larry gave me, wishing I had been paired off with any other person at that moment, or assigned to any other operation. It was unbecoming for a soldier of my caliber to admit fear, but there was nothing like having fifteen automatic weapons trained on my face.

It was then that the spy took action. He set off a grenade, and Larry and I mowed down the armed soldiers, and dragged the injured into a line. We went to work disarming them, tying them up, and preparing them for questioning.

Larry had another plan, though, and a lesson for me.

"I told you the world was full of scum. Well, there you go. Prime example. Promise a man six figures and a new identity, and he turns on the people who trust him."

He was talking about the spy, glaring at him, snarling like a rabid dog, but I was looking back at the line of bodies he had left with the gun that was now in my hands. He had started without warning, and I had done nothing to stop him. "Why did you…?"

"I told you." Larry grabbed me by the shoulders, turning me back to face the spy, who was quivering and trying to make himself smaller. "We could have been here for hours trying to get information out of these guys, and gotten nowhere. But now Dubwana is down twenty of his elite soldiers and he knows one of his men had to betray their location. So where might his attention be going, kid? What effect do you think this will have?"

It was very hard to look at him without feeling sick, but I answered, "His compound."

"Yes. But more importantly, _away_ from the villagers we occupy. You see, warlords have a few blind spots. When you worry too much about loyalty and rank and file, you put other things on the back burner – like securing food and water. If he pulls his forces close to home, he loses the last hope he had of taking the villages back, and we tighten our grip on the surrounding area. He can hunker down all he wants, mount missiles on the walls, arm his men with rocket launchers, whatever, but everyone has to eat, everyone has to drink."

His plan had never seemed so brilliant. I tore my eyes away from the spy, away from the bodies, and looked instead at the horizon. Somewhere out there, Dubwana was dug into his compound like a tick, becoming more paranoid as their operation closed in on him.

"Maybe you _are_ useful alive," Larry said to the spy, tugging the gag from his mouth. "But that depends on how cooperative you want to be. Feeling cooperative?"

I looked back in time to see the spy nodding vigorously.

Larry snorted, "I bet you are. Get up."

It was both horrible and fascinating to watch Larry work. He walked the spy to our vehicle, hogtied him in the backseat, and threatened to take off a limb if he caused any trouble. While his execution of the platoon had been quick and dirty, his staging was meticulous. He moved the bodies, laying them all in their tents and even zipping some into sleeping bags. He shut their eyelids, laid their guns beside them, and made it look like the whole platoon had been sleeping.

I walked around the camp, kicking sand over bloodstains, putting as little thought as possible into what I was doing. Larry was right. If we tried to question these men, we would get nothing, and spend hours here under threat of discovery. We already had the spy. We had come here to eliminate a threat, and it was done, permanently.

But there was a creeping sickness in my throat, a nasty cramping in my stomach. Something told me I shouldn't be able to look at the bodies, the blood, without revulsion. I shouldn't be so used to seeing it, so accustomed to it. I could feel myself changing, shifting, becoming hardened. It was getting easier and easier to side with Larry, to see his logic, to accept his wisdom.

When the scene was set, we loaded up in the jeep and headed back to base. I hung out of the back, drawing a broom back and forth to make our tracks look like the surrounding sand, and tried to ignore the soft sound of the spy crying.

"You and me, kid," Larry was saying, "I think we make a great team."


	18. Michael and the Monster

**A/N** : _Happy new year everyone! Also, the scene in which Michael drags Sam for 7 miles will be in this story, but not just yet._

XxX

 **Chapter 18.**

 **April of 1990.**

 **Michael and the Monster.**

War is like a long nightmare. You show up in a uniform, holding a gun, armed with the knowledge to outmaneuver some enemies, and the weakness to fall to others. Far from the action, the generals sit in their tents and shuffle little wooden soldiers around on topographical maps, and back home, people protest and pray and eventually forget. Factories pump out flags on flimsy sticks, letters and cards from classrooms are delivered alongside airdrops, and every day the desert sucks away the last pieces of yourself you managed to hold onto. War is made up of little pieces of paper, of contracts and business deals, of bags and boxes full of bloody coins. It forces you to learn, to grow unnaturally fast, to adapt and change and become someone else.

I learned about war, and about deception, from the spy at our base. Larry filled the quiet hours with rambling, sometimes a madman, sometimes a genius, and there was nothing to do but listen. He took every chance he could to teach me something new, and our lessons could be gentle and harmless, or brutal. He had high, specific expectations, and when I failed him the kindness drained from his eyes. He wanted me to be like him. I could feel it.

But I was nothing like him on the inside. It was a truth I clung to. It was what drove me to make my first great mistake in years – to leave my friends behind and go off on my own. Larry would have blown a gasket if he knew why I was going to Ubu, one of the villages that had proven an effective chokepoint for supplies to Dubwana and his army. Larry would say the warlord was too focused on his northern mines to care about Ubu, but I made it my personal mission to look out for it. Whether it was naivety, or caution after Mshauri, Larry would hate it.

He would hate me for this.

I was on my knees, my hands bound behind in front of me, my uniform lying in a heap that slowly burned at the base of a makeshift throne. Ubu was safe for the moment, but curious, and they stood by their homes and watched me with wide eyes, because they were afraid to look at the throne.

Dubwana was here. He sat like a king on a thatched seat, a silver crown upon his head. He had dusky brown skin, mostly hidden beneath a massive fur cloak. Beneath it, his legs showed many scars, and his feet were bound in sandals. He looked like any other man, and was no bigger than any of his companions, but it was immediately obvious that he was the authority here.

When he was done chatting with his companions in rapid Swahili, he stepped off his throne and approached me. Larry had taught me defiance in the face of certain death, but I had seen the way that worked for the men he killed. I practiced caution instead, looking at the ground.

Dubwana crouched down, staring at my face, frowning seriously, "What are you?"

He spoke English with a heavy accent, but I was used to the inflection by now. I chanced a look up into his eyes and found that one had a slash across it and the iris was gray.

"I… I'm a soldier."

"American." Dubwana looked around at the villagers, who seemed to shrink back a bit. "You are giving me the headache, you people. Sitting on my villages, stealing my supplies, killing my men. Do you know who I am, boy?"

"Dubwana," I said, though I had a feeling he was asking for more than a name.

He grabbed my face, squeezing my cheeks with long fingernails, and spat, "I am king. You are in the presence of royalty!"

I knew what kind of king he was. Dubwana was the target of our operation because we wanted the resources he was claiming, but there was more to him than that. He was starving the locals, terrorizing the countryside, claiming authority he didn't have, usurping the government. His type of leadership, his attempt at domination, came at a high cost.

"You will be telling me the plans you are making," Dubwana said.

Before he asked a question, and before I could have said anything, someone grabbed my arm and twisted it, nearly taking my shoulder out of socket. The warrior bore me to the ground, my face in the sand, and held me there, every nerve tingling. The pain was so sudden I screamed. I struggled, but it was like a boulder had fallen on top of me. I was helpless.

"Where are your allies?" Dubwana asked.

I said nothing. When I was young, my father would demand I tell him where I hid my little brother, and twist my arm until it was close to breaking. All the beatings I had taken, all the cold, lonely nights in juvie without a word, all the interrogations by teachers and grocery store owners, prepared me for this moment. To accept the pain, and live with it.

"Where are your allies?"

Sand ground into my cheek, salt in a wound.

"Where are your allies?"

I thought about the Reyes house, empty and cold.

"Where are your allies?"

It went on for hours, or minutes. It was hard to tell when the pain was so intense, when one arm went numb and my tormentor expertly switched to the other. Random thoughts flitted around in my head, memories from my childhood, expectations for my future. Only one thought stayed locked away in the back – surrender.

He was going to have to kill me, because I would never talk.

Dubwana seemed to come to that decision, because his questions became statements and threats instead. He was impatient and angry.

"Do you want to die, boy?"

No.

"Open your mouth and speak!"

No.

"Will you be so stubborn when I remove your tongue?"

Yes.

"His shoes. His shoes." He started in Swahili again, and the warrior finally released my arm. He yanked one of my shoes off, and then the sock, and grasped my foot in his hand. He pulled a machete from his belt, letting it glint in the sun.

Dubwana came down to my level again.

"You begin losing limbs now, boy."

I was ready, and so afraid that I trembled. It was a strange contrast. Somehow, I kept my mouth firmly shut, my eyes level, staring at my foot and imagining life without it. I was there, but my mind was distant. Everything inside of me was cold, as cold and lifeless as the Reyes house. On the outside I was trembling violently, naked in the arctic, a little boy in the hands of a stranger.

And then his voice came.

"Stop!"

Everything on the inside, in the inner circle, where Dubwana, the warrior, and I were standing, stayed the same. Neither of them stirred, and I could not look away from my own foot. But the troops Dubwana had brought with him all fixed their weapons on the new arrival, who held his hands up to keep himself from being shredded.

Larry was not armed. He had a radio in one hand.

"Dubwana," Larry said, "I'm here to negotiate."

Finally, as if he had just noticed the stir, the warlord looked up. He narrowed his eyes at Larry, and whistled to his monster, who let go of my foot. I was finally able to look up, to see my comrade walking into this warzone with nothing but a radio and his charm.

"We want our man back," Larry said, motioning to me, but not taking his eyes off Dubwana. "You want us to stop the siege. So, let's make a deal, shall we?"

Dubwana waved his hand dismissively, "What siege. You are hopelessly outnumbered."

"Oh, not here. No, the one happening at your base right now while you play fifty-questions with the kid."

Now the men stirred, murmuring, and Dubwana growled, "You are lying."

"You have one of these, huh? Give your guys a call." Larry wiggled his radio.

Dubwana was still for several seconds, suspicious, but curious. He finally said, "Shoot him if he moves," and pulled a little radio from his pocket. He unfolded the antenna and hit a few buttons, sending a signal out. He spoke in Swahili.

A response came, a little garbled.

Larry spoke, his voice low and threatening. "If we keep it up much longer, your walls will come down. Instead of negotiating and winning half of what you want, we will grind you and your people into a bloody little puddle in the sand."

At this threat, the militants tensed. Dubwana scowled.

"But this is your ticket." Larry held up his radio, tapping the button on the side. "One little word, and you get half of this oilfield and our blessing to do whatever the hell you want with it. But if you shoot me, if you shoot him," he motioned to me again, finally meeting my eyes, "You lose that deal. Think about what you want to do, Boss."

Dubwana had no time to think about it. In a blur of motion, Larry pulled a concealed gun from his waistline and shot the warlord square in the forehead. Soldiers popped off the nearby roofs and gunned down the hostiles surrounding the throne, leaving them lying in a pile around their king.

In a blur, in a breath, in a heartbeat, the warlord was done, and the mission was complete.

Larry dragged me out of the central area, into the space between two houses, and cut the bindings on my hands. He set his rifle down and took me by the face, doing a quick assessment.

I only managed to say, "You came."

"'Course I _came_ ," Larry muttered, patting me hard on the cheek and letting me rest against the wall. He wiped the blood from his face with his shirt, smearing it.

"But I…"

"None of that. Never apologize." Larry sat down opposite me, and I saw his hands trembling for the first time. "We make decisions. Sometimes _stupid_ ones. But we stand behind them. You could have blown this whole thing, but you ended it instead."

"I didn't-"

"No modesty, either. It's annoying." Larry handed me his canteen. "You came out here with that bleeding heart of yours to protect this place, and you got caught. Our spy on the inside told us that Dubwana was finally leaving the compound, to come interrogate an American soldier _personally_. I knew it had to be you, you _dumbass_."

I winced at his sharp tone, but it was hard to be afraid of someone who had just walked into a gunfight to save my life. His canteen was full of whiskey. It went down like fire.

Larry watched me, "Shoulders hurt?"

I nodded meekly.

"Good. You deserve it. Think about that next time you try to be the hero."

"Is it over now?"

"No, but we're nearly there." Larry stood up, swaying a bit, and hauled me up by my arm. It stung, but I tried my best not to show it. "He left some men to hold down the compound. It'll take some time to weed them out. But my job here is done."

"You're leaving?"

"New assignment, hopefully far away from this shit show." He reached for the canteen, and then withdrew his hand, nodding to himself. "Drink some of that at night when the throbbing starts. It'll help you sleep. I'll see you around, kid."


	19. Beautiful Monster

**Beautiful Monster.**

 **Chechnya.**

 **May of 1990.**

It was the middle of their vacation, a quiet trip to a luxury resort. On a warm afternoon, perhaps while they prepared to go out to eat for lunch or take a walk in the nearby nature preserve, there was a knock at the door. Raymond Fobbs opened it, probably expecting a hotel staffer to tell him some arbitrary news about the pool being out of order. He was laughing and there was a grainy outline at his leg – one of the kids, curious about the visitor.

Raymond saw immediately that this visitor was not with the hotel. He stood in all black, holding a handgun, a hood pulled snug over his face. Raymond might have realized then what that loud banging he heard moments ago was, or perhaps that was the last thing on his mind. His first reaction was to reach down and shove that little grainy outline back into the room.

But he was too late, and the door was already open. Raymond received a vicious crack to the head and fell back into the room. His attacker was joined by allies approaching from off camera, storming into the room and overwhelming anyone in their path.

It was quiet for several minutes after that. Other views showed the front desk attendant sitting upright in his chair, a hole blasted through his face. Some guests were scurrying down hallways, having seen the invaders and decided to stay as far from them as possible. Outside, a large white van was parked beside the Fobbs' rented car.

When the invaders emerged, one had Raymond over his shoulder, and another was walking his wife out, with a firm grip on the back of her shirt. She was bound, gagged, and terrified. Seven-year-old Evan Fobbs was carried out next, apparently unconscious or deceased, as he hung like a ragdoll over the shoulder of his captor. Ian Fobbs was last, also unmoving, with darkened blotches on his face and arms that were thought to be blood. He left a dotted trail of it down the hotel hallway, and out of sight. From there, each camera picked up the group until they were put in the van and shut away. It was maybe the last time the family would ever seen sunlight, the last time they would all be together.

Just like that, they were gone. Four people, stolen like valuable paintings, shut away in some dark cellar with no food, no water, no warmth.

It made me absolutely sick.

"People will try their damndest to convince you there's a line between right and wrong." Larry rewound the tape for the fourth time, chewing on a straw, a hard crease in his forehead. "Picture a battlefield instead. You got your sheltered people on one side, and your cold people on the other. Some people go their whole lives never seeing something like this, never imagining that someone would do it, that someone would have the _balls_ to do it."

Larry seemed reverent of that statement, a strange emotion for such a harsh observation. He was one of the cold people – it was painfully obvious when you knew him as well as I did.

It was impossible not to agree with him. I had seen cruel things already, but through the eyes of someone younger, someone softer. I could watch this tape now and let the rage grow with every intention of destroying the monsters responsible. I could think of how angry I was, and still sip from a mug of bitter black coffee. But not the old me, not the innocent me.

Larry paused as Evan was brought out, studying the screen. He wanted desperately to know if the children had been alive when they were extracted – not for any sentimental reasons, but because he needed to know if there were four hostages, or two. He had been pining over it for hours, trying to make up his mind. Once he came to a conclusion, he would stick with it.

"But those same people will form a mob," Larry said, picking up where he had left off and letting the video roll. "If some nice, sweet old lady got a bullet to the forehead, you can bet your ass the locals will find the bastard who did it and string him up. Or worse."

He paused again where the younger boy came out, squinting at the still image for a time before he started rewinding over and over to see it again.

"You know, a whole town will stand by and watch a kid get his hands cut off for stealing food, torch a man and watch him burn…" Larry let the tape play at last, rejoining me on the nearby couch. "Kid, you look at these guys. These are not the people you should be afraid of. It's those out there, all those sheltered people."

Larry was a beautiful monster. He was clever and bold, a keen mind with a wealth of knowledge. He could throw together explosives with any common objects and scale buildings like a deadly little lizard. But when he spoke, it was easy to pick out the mania. He had seen dark things, done dark things, and he drank at night to forget about them. He said the things he did were for his country, for the mission, but I could see an almost rebellious streak in his rants. Sometimes it was like he barely believed his own words, like he was trying to just as hard to convince himself as he was to convince me. But there was no denying the man was effective. He had completed two successful missions since the last time we met, whereas I had only managed to hang around waiting for the last men to surrender in the compound. Larry had been across the world already.

"Final verdict?" I asked as the tape came to an end.

Larry rubbed his forehead with his fingers, looking at the screen, which now showed only snow. He looked a lot older when he was focusing like this. "Four hostages."

"When they called-"

"Bad guys lie, kid," Larry interrupted. "You can listen all you want – trust, but verify. If they want money, they'll ask for four payouts no matter who was alive."

He was quiet for a moment. I reached over and turned the television off.

"Why do you think they left the tape?" he asked me suddenly.

I looked away from Larry to think, because it was easier when those cold blue eyes were not boring into mine. His question had never occurred to me.

"Did they just… not bother?"

"No, they did it for a reason." Larry stood, drawing the tape from the player and setting it on the nearby table. In their small, squat little room, there were over a dozen more all labeled for the time and date of the incident. "What were you thinking, when you saw it for the first time?"

"I thought they were bold, and careless."

"Bold is what they were going for." Larry nodded his approval. "They want us to start off on the weaker ground, to feel intimidated by their little show. If they can walk up and put a bullet through the attendant like that, and leave a trail of toddler blood out the door, what else could they do to those people? The idiots back home are already trying to bend over for them."

His words struck me. "So, you don't want to pay the ransom?"

"You saw the tape. No way in hell those guys are handing them back. No… they'll keep them alive long enough to do photo ops to get their money, and then they'll dig them a shallow grave."

"But we came-"

"I know your mission, kid. Sadler told me." Larry smiled, patting me hard on the shoulder. "Your straight-laced buddies want to do the exchange."

"Not the whole thing."

"No, not the whole thing. But he wants it big and dirty – damn special forces apes." He made a face, "No offense. But situations like this require a more delicate touch. Why do you think they sent me here?"

It was hard to really _like_ Larry. He was a snake, and not at all shy about it. He was strangely intense and not particularly friendly. He had strange passions and pitfalls. But after he saved me from losing a foot in Kenya, I came to trust him, and even to admire him. He was a wildcard, an unconventional soldier who got the job done without the strings of government holding him down. He had the power, the knowledge, and the skills to do incredible things.

He put his hand on my shoulder and squeezed, his grip like iron.

"I want you on my team for this one, kid."

I smiled despite myself, despite the video we had just watched. Larry put a strange faith in me that I had never experienced before.

Sadler was going to hate this, but the mission was not just about following orders to me – and Larry had this magical way of getting what he wanted. I had seen the tape, seen that brutality, and now I wanted to get that family home alive. Raymond Fobbs was an important US asset, but he was also a husband, and a father. I was going to take whatever path led to success.

Larry smiled in response and picked another tape off the table.


	20. Collateral

**Collateral**

 **Chechnya.**

 **May of 1990.**

It was a gentle clicking sound interrupting hours of radio silence. Larry was waiting for it. He rested his face near the radio and made tick marks on a blank sheet of paper, adjusting the height and spacing to match the way the clicks sounded. I was responsible for marking the time, down to the millisecond, and the time since the last series of clicks. It was a tedious, thankless task, but I did it without complaint.

"Spies spend a lot of time listening. Most of my job is gathering intelligence and interpreting it. Untrained eyes could spend hours combing through useless information." Larry liked to teach, especially in the long hours between clicks. "Your boys are out there scanning those tapes and questioning hotel employees – that will get them nowhere."

"But we scanned the tapes."

"We scanned the tapes for one reason – to find out how many hostages were alive. But those tapes won't tell them who these guys are or where they went, and neither will the employees. Even if they knew, no one would talk. You saw what happened to the guy at the desk."

"But what are we doing? With the clicking?"

Larry smiled at that question. It was always hard to tell if he was being genuine or mocking me. "Glad you finally asked. You in the habit of doing meaningless tasks just because someone tells you to?"

"Is this meaningless?"

"No. But you should always know why you're doing something. And not just that. You should know more than anyone else, even your allies. It only takes one person to screw up a sensitive operation." Larry tapped the radio, which was deathly silent. "What do you think the clicking means?"

"It must be some form of communication."

"But who's talking?"

"The kidnappers?"

"Is that a question?"

"The kidnappers."

"Exactly. I tuned into a frequency used by local law enforcement, only there are no law enforcement using it. Why is that?"

"…I'm not sure."

"Crisis procedure. Police switch over to short-wave lines to keep their conversations from being overheard. You can bet your ass most Russian criminals know this, but it's pretty ballsy to use the standard frequency in the meantime. And what did we learn about our guys from that tape?"

"They're pretty ballsy."

Larry nodded. "You gotta think like a criminal, kid. Where's the last place the police would look for someone who just kidnapped an entire family?"

"Right under their noses."

"So where are we looking?"

"Right under their noses."

Larry looked over his paper, which was now covered in little marks varying in size and frequency. "I've dealt with guys like this before. We can only hope they want a big payout. If they just want to incite terror… well, it gets a lot stickier."

"Because they would kill the hostages?"

"Because the hostages would have been dead the moment they got into that van – and because they wouldn't stop with one family."

I went to his side of the desk, looking down on the sheet full of tallies and discerning nothing useful from them. "What are you writing?"

"See this little dial?" Larry pointed at a little device he had attached to the radio, which started ticking each time a click came through. "It attempts to measure the distance from a central location – in this case, this room – to the source of the signal. Every time they communicate, it dials up to about ten kilometers."

"But that means-"

"It means our friends are well within the city limits and not that far from the police station, which is ballsy. But we already established how bold they are. The real trick here is figuring out what the clicks mean and how we can use them to pinpoint a location."

I sat down, studying the lines and trying to figure out why he had chosen to make these patterns. Larry said nothing, offered no assistance, only watched.

And then it came to me.

"One of them is moving."

Larry smiled his first genuine smile of the day. "How did you deduce that?"

"You were relating the kilometer reading to the clicks. Each set starts with ten, but the responses – these are the responses, right? – were further away, and getting closer, sometime less than a kilometer from the station. And then they settle back at fifteen kilometers."

"So, what does that mean for us?"

"It means… one of them is keeping an eye on the police."

"And…?"

"And if they keep driving past the police station we can follow them."

Larry drew the paper toward him, sketching two circles. He made a bold dot and said, "If this is the station, and this circle represents a ten-kilometer area around the station – and this circle is fifteen, where the car keeps parking after it comes by-"

"We can follow them and use the distance of the first set of clicks to narrow down the area where they originated."

Larry drew another circle, which overlapped slightly with the first, and shaded in the overlapping area. "It's not perfect science, but once I get my hands on a map we can pick out the most likely stash houses. You can't hide people just anywhere – you need a basement, or a soundproof room, or enough space that no one would hear you."

"Should we tell Sadler about this?"

"No, no. We call in backup when we have a location. Right now, this is all pretty fragile. We can't have a team of soldiers following that car around and blowing the whole thing. We need it to keep doing what it's doing."

Larry had a way with words, a way that put a seed of doubt in my stomach. I could understand not talking to the police immediately, but keeping my superior out of it? Wasn't that a punishable offense? But when I thought of going against what Larry wanted, my head went right back to the video of the family being hauled from their hotel room. I remember Larry being there to save my life not once, but twice. I had a deep-rooted trust in him that I simply could not shake.

He put his hand on my shoulder, as if sensing my indecision, and gave it a gentle squeeze. "You gotta have faith in yourself, kid. You can't always go running to the big guns when something scares you. I know it seems like too much for two people to handle, but it doesn't take twenty people to accomplish great things."

Larry started strapping himself into his gear, which consisted of a mishmash of black, bulletproof pads and an odd selection of handguns. He seemed to favor them over rifles. I followed his lead, trying to take his words to heart, but feeling like I was betraying Sadler every second.

"You ready to put that training to good use?" Larry asked, leading me out of the station by the back door, and into the ratty brown car he had been assigned.

I nodded, not bothering to put a seatbelt on. Larry parked around the block from the station, among a few other cars in front of a hotel. He set the radio, with the device still attached, on the dashboard, and the waiting began.

"Where did you say you were from, kid?"

He was not big on asking personal questions. It caught me off guard. "Um, Miami."

"Big city. My old handler used to say that the best spies come from big cities. You learn to blend in, to stay out of trouble, to be anonymous."

"Handler?"

"Gives out assignments. General pain in the ass." Larry flashed a smile.

I knew he was saying I might be a good spy, and that every day he was trying to train me to be more like him, but the weight of it failed to settle.

When the clicking came, the conversation ended. We waited, breathless, watching ever car that passed down our street. Larry seemed disheartened when the clicking stopped and no viable target had been identified, but one last car came – a blue Sudan – and he sat straight up.

"That one."

He drove normally, only pulling out when there were three cars between us and the Sudan. It took a straight route through the business side of town, away from the resorts and things, and turned right onto a quiet back road, turning again to park near an empty lot. Larry did not follow. He drove past, and parked in the road, obscured by a delivery truck.

"Now we wait for the all-clear…"

It came at once, a gentle clicking, and the device on the radio buzzed at four kilometers. Larry pulled out a map, measured, and drew a ten-kilometer circle around the police station, and then, around their location, a four-kilometer circle. One area, less than a block, was covered in the overlap. I smiled, fascinated, again dazzled by his genius.

"And that, kid, is how it's done."

"That's amazing."

"Don't count your chickens yet." Larry tapped the map. "We still have to decide where these guys might be hiding out."

"There are only three buildings there. We could search them all."

"We could start with the wrong one, and tip them off."

I was silenced by his tone, a bite full of venom.

"Don't stop thinking now, kid. We have three residential lots, across the street from a church and a graveyard. I doubt they would be stupid enough to hide in a church – as whacko religious as this area is – so we have three possibilities. What do you think?"

I studied the map, an aerial shot of the city, and saw three fuzzy rectangles. "I… can't tell."

"Right. So, we have another stop to make."

"We need the building plans."

"Good. Where might we go to get those?"

"City hall?"

"City planning. Separate building. You see them a lot in resort cities. I'll call up the station and get directions. You get behind the wheel."

"Why do I have to drive?"

"Do you speak Russian?"

He had been teaching me, but I could barely hold a conversation with the hundred or so words I knew. I said nothing, only switched seats with him and headed away from where the car we had followed was parked. Larry spoke rapidly on the phone and kept pointing out ways for me to turn until we came back to the business part of town. It was a wide road, dotted with little shops, much nicer than some of the drab neighborhoods we had ridden past.

"You'll learn something, traveling around," Larry said once his call ended. We were just pulling into a parking lot. "Resorts make money for resort owners while the nearby communities deflate, and the local resources are drained."

He was right. Even the buildings around the planning office looked like slums.

Larry went in alone and came out with new knowledge. He was not allowed to borrow the plans, but he could look at them. He picked out the house on the right side, with one story and a basement, and a minimal backyard surrounded by a large fence.

"One thing kidnappers really like is privacy. High fences, minimal windows, nice big basement, and most of all, rundown neighborhoods – look the other way type places."

We hit the road. Larry called for backup. It was all happening so fast.

"What if-?"

"Kid, what did I say about faith? I know what I'm doing."

"But-"

"Do you want to complete this mission, or not? I can drop you off here if you're not man enough to see it through."

I did my best to quell my misgivings.

"You've handled hostage situations before, right?"

"A few."

"But your buddy Sadler was there to hold your hand. I'm not holding your hand. You're gonna go in there, and you're gonna put that training to use. You're gonna get that family to safety."

"I am. I will."

"That's the spirit."

Larry parked down the street. It was almost sundown. He wasted no time, only looking at the house for a minute or two before deciding his deductions were correct, and this was where the family would be held. We exited the car silently, letting the doors stay open, and crept through the backyard of another, nearby house.

Before we were too close, Larry whispered, "You do what you have to do. I believe in you, kid."

And that was it.

We hit the fence, scaled it, and dropped into the backyard. There was a dead dog lying by the back fence and the sliding glass door had blood on it. Inside, I could already see two bodies – not the family that was kidnapped, but perhaps the family that lived here. Larry saw them too, and his nostrils flared. He had a handgun out. He motioned for me to draw a weapon.

It was dark inside, save the glow of a television. Two people sat on the couch with the unmistakable heads of two rifles peeking over the cushions beside them, and no one was looking toward the back door.

I got my hands on the sliding door and tested it. Unlocked. I slid it open so slowly that it took a full minute to make a big enough gap to get through. Soundless, I slipped inside. Larry was right behind me. He approached the living room, where the oblivious sentries were, and I went straight for the basement door. There was a new hinge, recently added, with a padlock on it.

Larry turned toward me, and I pointed out the lock. He nodded, motioning toward the sentries, and then thrusting his hand toward the hall where the bedrooms were. He wanted me to clear the house.

It would be impossible to stay undetected for much longer. Larry was almost to the couch, moving silently, in a half-crouch, like a hunting cat, and my path to the hallway would inevitably cross one of the sentries' peripheral visions.

We were in a powder keg, about to explode.

Larry moved like a master. He drew a knife, grasped the first sentry around the jaw, and slit his throat from ear-to-ear. It made a sick sound and brought a quick end. He was on the next one before the first one was dead, trying the same tactic. He met resistance. I saw him struggling as I ducked into the hallway.

The first two bedrooms were empty, save the bodies of some children that must have been killed as they slept. My heart hammered. The master bedroom was at the end of the hall. There was thumping from the living room, a few grunts, the clatter of metal on wood.

I prepared to kick the final door open, because the element of surprise was long gone, but something felt off. I heard a creak, a clatter, a breath.

I flattened myself to the wall just as a spray of gunfire came from the master bedroom. It shredded the door. Splinters filled the air. I staggered into the first room, the room of a little girl who lay in a permanent slumber and waited in the doorway. Bullets pierced the bedroom walls, but not the frame. I was protected by thicker wood. It seemed like several minutes I stood there, trying to decide how to escape as wave after wave of gunfire kept me pinned to the spot.

And then the shots stopped all at once.

I waited, breathless, until I heard his panicked voice.

"Michael? _Michael_!"

I stepped out, trembling, as the dust cleared.

Larry was covered in blood. His black vest glistened with it. He holstered his gun and stepped through the remains of the master bedroom door. "Come on out, kid. We're clear." Larry put an arm around my shoulders, guiding me back into the living room, where the dead sentries were still bleeding.

"You did good, kid. You're okay. Just breathe."

It was hard to breathe when every muscle in my body was tensed up, but Larry squeezing my shoulders made it a lot easier. That innate trust kicked in and I took a few ragged breaths.

"There you go. Easy now."

It all happened so fast, it almost seemed like a dream.

The front door burst open. Larry yanked out his gun and fired. A fully uniformed officer slumped to the ground and the carpet became saturated with his blood.

" _Shit_." Larry went toward the body, pressing his fingers to his throat, checking for a pulse. He looked sadly up at me and locked his jaw. "This was an accident."

I nodded numbly. My eyes got stuck on the shiny gold badge. "Y-Y-Yeah."

Larry went to the couch, wiping his gun on his bloody shirt and pressing it into the hand of the nearest dead sentry. He placed it in his lap when the floppy dead fingers refused to hold onto it.

"Go get the hostages." Larry brushed his hands off on his shirt, but only smeared the blood on his hands further. He locked them over his head, staring at the police officer he had killed. "Go get the hostages and bring them up here. Go now!"

I jumped, as his voice had suddenly boomed in the quiet house. It took a moment to pry my eyes from the dead officer – an innocent, an accident – and go back into the kitchen.

My hands were numb. It took a while to get the crowbar into the lock, and then my strength seemed to fail as I tried to pry it open. I was shaking badly. It felt like I had never really seen death before – not so up close and personal, at least. Men had died in front of me, good and kind and innocent men, but there was a brutality to the way that Larry killed. It was completely alien. I could not stop picturing their throats, opened up, their insides like raw meat, their blood coating his hands, his face, his chest. I kept seeing the surprised face of the officer – the young man with the shiny gold badge – as a bullet tore through the vital organs in his chest. I kept hearing the sound of him hitting the ground, the way that Larry cursed, the immediate guilt on his face.

But I worked through it.

 _You gotta have faith in yourself, kid. You can't always go running to the big guns when something scares you. I know it seems like too much for two people to handle, but it doesn't take twenty people to accomplish great things._

I armed myself with a handgun and a flashlight and descended the stairs. It smelled rank, like human feces and old blood. I found the light and turned it on.

And there was the Fobbs family, huddled in a corner, their arms all bound restrictively behind their backs and their legs in chains. Raymond was the most injured, with a big, swollen black bruise covering half of his face, and his wife seemed unconscious. She was breathing long, shallow breaths, and wearing different clothes than what I had seen in the video. Evan, the seven-year-old, was propped up against his father, his little knees worn to the bone by his bindings, and his little brother was trying to cry through his gag, but only hyperventilating.

Everyone was alive. It stopped my trembling, to see them all like that.

"Everything is going to be okay," I said, approaching, keeping my voice as gentle as I could manage. "I came here to help you. I'm gonna get you out of those chains, okay?"

Raymond had tears in his eyes. He nodded and tried to speak through his gag.

Shots went off upstairs.

Just like that, the peace ended, and I was rushing back up, missing a step in my haste.

Larry was standing in the living room, his gun drawn, facing the front door. Where there had been just the body of the young officer – an innocent, an accident – now there were two. His uniform was more worn, his face older, his gun drawn, but obviously unfired.

"What happened?" I demanded.

Larry still had his gun out, still pointed at the corpse, this empty look on his face. "It was his partner… he saw… I had to…"

I hit my knees beside the older officer, hoping he was still alive, but Larry had deadly aim. "You… you killed him!"

" _I had to_!" Larry declared again, his tone cold.

I looked back at the officers, two gold stars lying dead together, and realized I was wrong to let Larry talk me out here. We should have called for backup to infiltrate the house. Sadler and the team could have prevented this. We could have taken the hostages to safety, detained or put an end to the kidnappers, and avoided these victims in the process.

And I looked at Larry, and that strange, innate trust I had in him was shattered. I saw him for the first time – really _saw_ him – and found a monster looking back at me.

"You'll tell them they got caught in the crossfire, plain and simple. You got that, kid?"

I nodded and felt a gnawing hole open up inside.

"Go handle the hostages."

It took less than ten minutes for the entire police station – and my team – to arrive at the house. We had to carry each family member upstairs, because their captivity had left them weak, and I stood in the street to watch the ambulances drive off. Sadler questioned me, and I told him the truth – for the most part. When he asked about the officers, I gave him the lie with a straight face, and I was hurt to see how much he trusted me.

I knew I could be a monster, too. I could lie, and I could kill, and I could dance along the line of right and wrong like Larry did. It would be so easy to be like him.

It would be so easy.

XxX

When the dust cleared, we were all put on a plane back to the States to be debriefed. It was not your typical black flight, but a passenger plane, where we were given first class status. I sat with my team, brooding, burning, until I was possessed with curiosity.

Larry sat alone near the front of the plane, writing silently in a notepad.

"Why were they there?" I asked, taking the seat beside him.

Larry shrugged. "Heard gunshots, decided to be heroes."

I could not read his writing. It was in Russian. I focused on the window instead, watching the clouds and trying to forget what I had seen today.

"Listen, kid," Larry said, after a long silence. "Sometimes you get collateral damage. You have to be able to move past it. It's all part of the price of freedom."

"What do you mean?"

"I mean, I get sent to do a job. People die sometimes. But the job gets done and we get one more day without a war, without an international incident, without skyrocketing oil prices."

"So, you think it was worth it, in the end?"

"I think the mission was a success, and that's all that matters, kid."

Larry had opened my eyes in the worst possible way. Parts of me agreed with him, that saving the family was more important than who got killed in the process – but where was the line? How many lives could they take and still justify saving those people? Was it a life for a life? Would four be too much? I was so conflicted inside, so confused. Right and wrong were cloudy.

But even through that haze, I knew I was a better man than Larry. I could not look coldly at those people, collateral damage or not. I could not live with being the reason they died. It was that little difference that comforted me, that let me sleep at night.


	21. Card

**Card.**

 **Panama.**

 **July of 1990.**

"Why did you join the military?"

Spies are trained to look into the eyes of strangers and see their life stories. Unflinching, unsettling, they dig into the meat of their target, until there is nothing left but the bare bones – the truth. Spies are dogged, unrelenting predators, and everyday people are their helpless prey.

"I wanted to leave home."

"I see you were arrested fourteen times in a three-month span when you were only eleven years old. What was that all about?"

"We needed food, so I stole it."

"Were you poor?"

"No."

"So why not just buy your food?"

Spies have blank faces and they don human masks in whatever expression they find themselves in need of. Even the simple things come from careful control – a smile, a blink, narrowed eyes, a clenched jaw. Some people fail to see through the ruse, and so get sucked in. Some people believe what they see beyond what they feel. But in the wounded, in the experienced, in those weathered by circumstance, there lives an instinct to protect against this deception. People like me feel a cold chill down their spine. We sense that things are not what they seem. We look at liars and see the blankness beyond their expressions.

We recognize people who are like us.

Card stared at me and I stared back, not letting his probing questions unnerve me. But the words, tranquil as I was on the surface, awoke a frustration inside of me. Every rank I gained in the army brought these questions up. Everyone sought to define me by who I used to be, not who I had become. I was so different as a child – so different before I went to war – that it almost seemed like that was another life. How could they look at that scrawny kid and think he was like me?

I answered with the same level, detached voice I had used throughout the interview, keeping my feelings tucked away.

"We had an income, but my father was on a bender. He spent everything we had."

"Do you drink?"

"No."

"You were caught stealing fourteen times. Not very sneaky."

"I got caught on purpose, so my little brother could steal while I had their attention."

Card nodded, and it was the first time I saw him show a genuine emotion. He was impressed. He wrote something in his folder and went on as his pen worked. "You have a decorated history for someone so young. Excellent exam results in basic… highest in your class."

I was completely different when I taught my little brother to slip snacks into his jacket pockets, but the difference between then and now seemed just as profound as the difference between now and basic training. It was a lifetime ago. Some other boy had enlisted and made those friends. Some other boy had watched them drop out, struggled through obstacles with them, learned from a patient teacher and wondered about the future.

"Exemplary work in Kenya…"

"Sir?"

Card looked up from his notes, his eyebrow cocked. "Hmm?"

It was too late, but my brain told me to shut my mouth.

"Kenya was…"

"Kenya resulted in the acquisition of a new resource and the elimination of a dangerous enemy." Card spoke firmly, inviting no questions. "Given time to grow, backwoods kings can become a real thorn in the ass. I know you got yourself captured on purpose, to give Larry Sizemore a chance to catch the king himself out in the open – I have it all here, every word."

Card stared at me, and I did everything I could to meet his gaze confidently. But something told me he knew the truth, that my capture was an accident and a result of disobeying orders – he was choosing to ignore that, to believe whatever Larry had told him.

He went on like I had said nothing.

"Jason Sadler gave you a glowing review… five missions in Russia in a four-month period – talk about getting started with a bang. It seems you were made for this line of work."

Card was quiet for a while, writing in his folder, turning pages, circling things, and glancing at me every now and then. When he was done writing, he placed his pen carefully in an otherwise empty pencil cup and rested his chin on his hand.

He looked into my eyes, and asked, "What makes you think you can do this job, son?"

Spies are many things – bold, creative, resourceful – but what makes them truly effective are the less glamorous traits. Larry was innately cold and detached, with a burning rage inside of him, a desire to control things and get his way, an almost obsessive determination that made him a very dangerous enemy. But did I have any of those qualities? Did I want them?

If there was one right answer to this question, I was sure to miss it by a mile.

"I'll do whatever it takes to get the job done."

"Do you have a death wish, son?"

"No."

"I can offer you a position with the CIA, an unofficial operative. You will perform missions given to you by me. If you choose to accept, there is a very high chance you will die. Every mission is perilous, and no one will be there to hold your hand or back you up. Do you understand?"

I thought of Larry and the two dead police officers in Chechnya. "Yes."

"When you begin a mission, you forget about your life outside of that mission. You become whoever we tell you to be, and you do whatever we tell you to do. You have no home, you have no family, you have no friends. Do you understand?"

"Yes."

Card wore a hard expression now, one that was so genuine it planted a seed of doubt in my head.

"I see myself in you, Michael."

His words were obviously not part of the script. I had no response planned. When people said things like that, they usually seemed happier about it.

Card stood up and walked around his desk to give me a hearty handshake.

"As of right now your deployment in Panama is over. You will have no further contact with the delta force team, including your superior. Your personal belongings will be confiscated. You are not permitted to make any phone calls. You will not leave my side until I deliver you to the initiation site. I am your resource and connection during your training, no one else."

His words carried more weight than anything anyone had ever said to me. I was suddenly intimidated by what I had gotten myself into. As I followed him down the hallway of a lush business resort, I felt like I was walking into a very obvious trap.

"Relax," Card said as we entered an elevator. He put his hand on my shoulder and squeezed. "I have to say all that, as a formality."

I tried to relax, but my body refused.

"You have a big future ahead of you, Michael."

We rode down six floors, and when the elevator dinged I got a view of the front lobby. It was so tranquil, so beautiful, and so _empty_. Where were all the people I had seen on my way in?

Card steered me out, and said again, "Relax."

Something stabbed my arm and my muscles burned and locked up. I had time to look at Card, puzzled, and the strength to grasp at the front of his suit as he guided me gently to the ground.

His beady blue eyes were the last thing I saw before the blackness.


	22. How to be a Bad Man

**How to be a Bad Man.**

" **The Base."**

 **August of 1990.**

When a man becomes a spy, he is introduced to a world that few are privileged to see. Secrets and lies are as common as fatigues on a soldier, as expected as guns in a warzone. Friends are rare, and you begin to sink into yourself. You learn things that no one else can ever know, and the burden of that knowledge will never, can never, leave you. It begins in training and it never stops.

It was dawn.

I had been in a windowless, concrete building with no name for six days. I had grown accustomed to life without sunlight, without grass and trees and sky. I was used to being lied to and purposefully startled – so used to it that when I opened my door that morning and found a man standing there with a gun in his hand, I barely reacted. It was only my escort, Bernard. He sighed at his failed attempt to scare me and led me out into the hall – into a concrete hall, with tall, porous walls and no pictures, like every other hall in this place.

"Did you hear me coming?" Bernard wondered, directing me to the right this time. He deliberately took me a different way every morning. "Or did you have a late night? Just sleepy?"

"No, but if you wanted to kill me, there are better ways than shooting me in the hallway."

Bernard was a stout man with rust-colored hair, brown eyes, and the most casual personality of anyone in this building. He was the only one who smiled at me, the only one who talked to me outside of lectures and evaluations. He was the person I clung to when I felt myself slipping away from the things that made me human.

On my first day, I had a bag over my head and someone kept pulling a trigger near my ear. It was supposed to get me used to the thought that I could die at any moment. It gave me nightmares. Every day since, someone had tried to kill me – or at least pretended to. I was used to the adrenaline, that knotting in my gut, those hairs rising on my neck. Now I knew when someone was lurking, when someone was acting strangely. It activated a buried instinct. It was working. When I saw Bernard at the door, it was my brain that spoke, not my gut.

He took me through the labyrinth of corridors, which seemed intentionally convoluted, and dropped me off at my first station. It was always the same. Education in the morning. I studied wars and land acquisition, borders and ethnic groups, feuds and foreign cultures. From there, I was escorted to lunch, and then directly to the vault. I sat in a dark room, in a chair against the wall, and watched images pour past on a projector screen. I identified ethnic groups, languages, weapons, and various plants and animals from countries of interest.

In the vault, I was a machine. Every other part of my brain shut down and the things I had learned came to the front. It was like that sometimes. Pictures of death and decay were slipped in with plants and language cards, desensitizing me to the violence I would no doubt face in the field.

I was unaffected for six days, but today a picture took my breath away.

She was standing by the back door, a cigarette in her hand, cherry red lipstick wearing off on the filter. I could see inside the house from this angle – beer cans stacked up in the trash, the wall phone carefully mounted on its receiver, a few old lotto tickets on the counter. I could read her expression, see the quiet contempt inside. I could even feel the hot Miami sun beating down on my neck, hear the mosquitoes buzzing on a warm midsummer day.

It was her. It was my mother.

I sat in silence, staring at her, asking myself how they had gotten it and why they were showing it to me. It was recent. It had to be. Mom looked older than when I had left home. Something in her expression was entirely new to me.

With the surprise came the fury. "What is this?" I asked, unable to stop myself. I got up, pulling off my headset and groping around for the door. "Hey! Open the door! _Open it_!"

Her picture disappeared, and everything went dark. I stood wearily in the blackness until the door popped open. Tom Card was standing there, wearing a pinstripe suit with his hair combed neatly to one side. He wore the same expression he always did – part of it fatherly, part of it dangerous.

"Michael," he said in greeting, inviting me out into the hall. "Sorry about that."

"Who took that picture?" I demanded.

Card glanced up and down the empty hall. "Come with me. We can talk."

He led me to a conference room with only two chairs and folded his hands neatly on the desk.

"We assess our recruits for all potential weaknesses, including family. We had to take a look at yours. We went over that when you got here, remember?"

I was bristling. I had never agreed to have someone at my house, taking pictures of my family. "You already know about my family. You read it in my file."

"Right. But a file is just paper." Card sat back in his chair. "You can relax. Your family is fine."

He said it matter-of-factly, like he had said those same words a hundred times in his career. It gave me no peace. But I still struggled to regain my temper.

"I never agreed-"

"You signed your life away, son," Card said, suddenly threatening. He tapped into that soldier side of himself, that sharp tone that welcomed no backtalk. "We did our homework, and it came back clear. End of story."

"Why did you show me?" It was some kind of power play, some kind of test.

"Must have slipped in," Card said, almost eerily. He smiled at me. "Your training is progressing nicely. I want you to move on to soft skills now. Your combat training will continue, but your mornings will be spent with me."

"Soft skills?"

"Languages, behavior, and the art of lying." Card got up, motioning toward the door. "I left a book in your room for this evening. Read it. I want you to be familiar with the content by tomorrow morning. You and I are going on a field trip."

I followed him back into the hall, noting that it was now clear of any other agents. Bernard was gone. Everything was quiet.

"Sir," I caught him before he made his exit.

"Please, call me Card."

"Card, sir, stay away from my mother."

Card smiled, giving me a hard pat on the shoulder. "You got it, sport."

I watched him walk off with a sinking feeling in my stomach. For the last six days I had been wondering what I'd gotten myself into, and this made it so much worse. Larry had never really delved into how far-reaching these agencies were, and the movies could never do it justice. I could be here, halfway across the world, in this windowless place, and someone could be standing outside my old home, taking pictures of my family from the bushes.

His book was lying in the center of my bed, as promised. I avoided looking at it while I got ready to sleep, trying to be defiant, but my curiosity got the best of me. It was well-read, with a stark black title against a red background.

" _How to be a Bad Man_."

XxX

Crowded bars with lots of tourists in them are the perfect place to practice soft skills. Everyone is from out of town and not likely to stay long, so you can pretend to be whoever you like. No one thinks too long, and everyone is a little tipsy. Card had me working those crowds, giving me names and nationalities and sending me to different patrons with a mission in mind. Get them to buy me a drink. Have them admit some sort of secret. Get a girl to blush. Get a man to talk about his family. Get a man to punch the guy beside him.

I was a farmer from Wisconsin, an archaeology student from Belmont, a janitor from Wales. Card gave me free reign after a while and I became whoever I wanted. I was a millionaire in for the weekend, a former boxer passing through. It came so easily to me, this lying, that I started having too much fun with it. I was a playboy from the west coast, a diving instructor from Australia, a young medical student from Belgium. I was everything and anything I could imagine.

We finally stopped late at night, when we were only supposed to be out until midday. Card gave me some allowances because of how long I had been locked up. Even when the training was over, we sat together in the back corner of a new bar, each with a small glass of brandy.

"You did well today," Card said, sipping his drink and smiling at me. "You're a natural."

He was right. I could mimic accents like a native speaker and lie through my teeth to total strangers. Every successful lie gave me more confidence, let me make up something more complex. I was practically drunk with power.

"How is it so..?" I began, unsure of how to finish.

"Easy? Some people get it right away. Some never get it."

I sipped my drink and grimaced at the flavor. "What now?"

"For today, nothing. We start with the harder stuff tomorrow. Convincing someone to buy you a drink is a lot easier than, say, convincing someone to commit a crime."

"Do we do that a lot?"

"When the mission calls for it. But the same basic principals apply. You pick your target, tailor your cover, and never admit that you're lying. You might need to convince a mobster to carry out a hit on a target. You might need to get in with a drug cartel to get close enough to destabilize their infrastructure. You might need to get someone arrested to avoid an international crisis."

"Have you done that?"

"Oh, yes. Four times. No, five."

I smiled despite myself. Card was a hard man to understand but spending the day with him was much better than wasting away in that big concrete box. He was teaching me practical skills, giving me tips, telling me stories. I never wanted him to leave.

Card leaned in importantly, "Listen, sport, our game is all about lying. But it's not always for bad reasons. We do it to keep people safe – to keep the people we love out of it, for example. For most people, it's better if they never know the truth."

He was certainly right about that. Even when I was a soldier, I would never admit how dangerous my life was to my mother. She would drag me home if she knew about this.

"Did you read the book?" Card wondered, taking another sip.

I drank longer, finishing my brandy and coughing as my throat simmered. I had wondered when he would bring that book up. "Why did you give it to me?"

"Frank Parker was a hell of a man. Best conman who ever lived."

His gift, a book written by Frank Parker about his decades of lies to his own wife and children, had kept me up the night before. From the very first page, it was obvious the title was not an exaggeration. His lies were almost sickening.

"We take a lot of cues from him," Card went on. "Frank knew how to tell people what they wanted to hear. He could read into every part of a conversation and change his cover on the fly. He could trick anyone into anything."

 _Like he tricked his wife into committing armed robbery and convinced the police he had nothing to do with it. Like how he visited her in prison and told her he loved her._

"I want you to study that book. Learn what you can from it."

"His wife committed suicide," I said. "Is he really a role model?"

"Everyone is a role model." Card seemed unfazed by this. He sipped his drink and smiled. "We learn what we can from anyone willing to teach us. Frank knew what made people tick. You read people on the surface, Michael – and don't get me wrong, that's a good start, it is – but you have to learn how to look deeper. You have to learn how to reach into people and grab what's most precious to them."

 _And twist it and use it against them, like Frank._

Card looked around, and then nodded toward the bar.

"See that woman fidgeting up there? What do you know, just from looking at her?"

I knew who he meant immediately. She was wearing a dress that was too small and shoes that were too thin. She had on too much makeup and her hair was a bit of a mess. On the surface she appeared to be having a good time, but between laughs her lips would twitch down into a subtle frown. She sat sideways on the edge of her seat, trying to be involved in a conversation between two other women who were heartlessly edging her out of it.

"She's lonely," I said immediately, pitying her.

"Do you think she could ever kill someone?"

I glanced at him, making sure that he had in fact asked me if this lonely woman was capable of murder. I looked again, uncertain. "I don't know. How am I supposed to know that?"

"If I were betting, I would say she is."

"Why?"

"Lonely people are desperate people." Card finished his drink and stood up. "Come on. We start with psychology tomorrow."

I paused outside, where we were finally alone.

His words had finally sobered me, and that feeling of power I had felt all night faded away into nothing. "Is this…? Are you going to get me to convince someone to… commit murder?"

Spies are bad men.

You learn things that no one else can ever know, and the burden of that knowledge will never, can never, leave you. You feel power in your abilities, in your training, and sometimes forget what that training is for. When the weight of it sinks in for the first time, it takes your breath away.

Card looked me straight in the eyes, unblinking, and he had this tranquil, evening smile on his face. I had never seen him look this dangerous.

"Yes."


	23. Limits

**Limits.**

 **Moscow, Russia.**

 **August of 1990.**

Ramona Belwich was a twenty-three-year-old exchange student fresh out of a small town in the westernmost part of Missouri. She was an only child and her dad was a respected local businessman. She had been given all the opportunities to succeed – summer camps, internships in exotic places, tutorship by great and expensive minds – and so when it came to getting into a good college, there was nothing holding her back. She had been so eager that she started learning the language before she left home. She knew how to greet people, how to ask prices, how to read road signs. But there was nothing in her education to prepare her to meet me.

She was wild and happy and beautiful, glowing with the passion that drove her halfway across the world. Her classmates liked her, admired her, and she had come to this bar with them after two weeks of classes to unwind. She was new to this, a naïve child in a faraway place. Without these acquaintances – who barely knew her – and her parents – a world away – she was utterly alone.

Ramona smiled at me when I sat down beside her. It was a loud place, so I barely heard her butchered Russian greeting.

I responded in English, with a southern accent, imitating my father. Her eyes lit up and she started talking. Larry was right. I barely had to say anything, ask anything, and I got her whole life story. She let me know how alone she was, how far from home, how she hardly knew the people she had come to the bar with. I bought her drinks and sipped with her, tempting her to drink more. But every sip she took, every smile she threw my way, made my stomach twist tighter. It felt bad to put myself in the shoes of a predator. But this lesson was enlightening. How could people give themselves away so willingly? Was this the sign of someone who had never been hurt?

It was easy to get her to leave the bar with me. She stumbled outside and let me guide her into the nearest alley, where the walls were high, the bricks absorbing the music from the bar. She pulled me closer, into a wet, drunk kiss, and ran her hands down my chest, blue eyes sparkling from the alcohol running rampant in her blood. How could it be this easy?

She failed to recognize all the signs of danger. We were alone, apart from all of her friends, in a quiet place with no doors or windows and no escape. I was taller and stronger than her, an absolute stranger she had known for only half an hour, and still nothing had occurred to her.

 _I want you to put that charm of yours to the test and prove me right, kid. I want you to understand just how easy it is. That's lesson one._

Ramona could have died that night. She could have died a thousand miles from home. Her family might never have known what really happened to her and those people inside would feel guilty for a little while, and then forget. Some crueler person than me could come along and lure her out, return her kisses, drive a knife through her throat. She could go from being a girl to being a body, a cadaver, a chart on a desk in a language she didn't even understand.

 _Once you have them alone, the trap closes. Never hesitate. Pull the trigger. People will never forget someone who tried to kill them, so you never leave them breathing._

I brushed her hands from my chest as gently as I could, and murmured, "Go back inside."

Ramona looked up at me, clearly confused, still unable to register the threat in this state. But she obeyed. She walked back down the alley, turned toward the bar, and the bell on the front door jingled. When she was gone, my heart began to hammer.

"I told you it was easy." Larry appeared at the other end of the alley.

 _Easy._ It was easy for him, maybe. It was the easiest thing in the world to lie to people but using that lie to manipulate them was much more serious. It weighed on me, made me realize what I was really capable of – and that realization was sickening. Was he training me to be a killer? Were his missions about luring girls from bars and dropping bodies in alleys?

"Relax. Breathe." He made it to me and took me by the shoulders, giving me a little shake. He was smiling. "You did great. I knew you would."

"Is that it for tonight?" I asked hopefully.

"You wish, kid. Oh, oh, what did you introduce yourself as? Justin? Chad? _Noah_?"

"Dennis."

"Good. Dennis is a trustworthy name. Good instincts." We walked from the bar to our hotel, in a busier part of the city. Some parts of Moscow never slept. "We just got our first assignment."

"What is it?"

"Just a little information acquisition."

Our hotel room was average, fit with two beds, a bathroom, and a small kitchen area. It connected to another, unoccupied room that Larry said was good for escaping through. It gave us separate sleeping quarters, which was all I cared about.

"Who are we taking information from?" I asked from the other room, while stripping off clothes that smelled of cigar smoke and vodka. "Or are we stealing files?"

"Interrogation," Larry responded, hovering in the doorway. "Remember what I taught you?"

I remembered him shooting unarmed captives in the desert.

"Yes."

"Good. Consider this part two. We need a bank account number."

"That's it? That's the whole job? Why? Who wants it?"

"Not our business."

"But-"

"How many times do I have to tell you not to ask questions?" Larry shook his head. "We get missions from no one, give information to no one, answer to no one."

"Fine."

"You'll learn. You will." He stepped away, tipping the door shut behind him. "Get ready to leave. Our friend with the numbers is waiting."

XxX

When you train to be a spy, there are certain things you have to accept. Your career is like smoke in the wind. No one knows your name, no one remembers your face. Sometimes you have to hurt people. Sometimes you have to kill people. And sometimes the people who end up on your list are just everyday citizens. Sometimes the people you hurt are innocent.

Our hostage was innocent.

He was on his knees, badly beaten from his encounter with Larry, his arms duct-taped together and a black mask wrapped around his eyes. Larry had taped his arms in the posture of prayer, so it looked like he was constantly pleading with us.

He was the man with the numbers.

"You have one more chance," Larry said, in an almost disinterested tone. He tapped his metal baseball bat to the ground, making the man with the numbers flinch. Larry had not hit him yet, but the sound of metal on metal was eerie.

The man with the numbers whimpered and said nothing.

Larry looked at me and smiled – he was always smiling. "Numbers are hard to remember. Sometimes people forget. They'll tell you anything you want to hear. Since our friend here has suddenly forgotten the numbers, we have to use him to make a point, so maybe our next friend will remember."

I almost didn't ask, but I could tell Larry wanted me to. "Make a point?"

"Our friend has a family. He has three beautiful boys and a baby girl, and a wife who would do anything for him. I'll find them, and gut them, and lay them out on his front lawn."

When he heard that, the man with the numbers finally spoke. "Please! 2-4-1-9-8-0-1-8-9!"

Larry crouched down, paused for several seconds, and then drew the blindfold away. He was eye-to-eye with the terrified captive, all the malice of a real monster in his eyes. "Say it again."

"2-4-1-9-8-0-1-8-9!"

Larry rolled his bat on the ground, making a sickening grinding sound, and brought it to rest near the man with the number's knee. "Say it again."

"2-4-1-9-8-0-1-8-9! Please! Please!"

I looked away as Larry feigned with the bat, making the man cry out in fear. The captive was sobbing. I focused on the metal paneling behind us, the chains hanging from the empty factory's ceiling. I wanted to be anywhere but here. _Anywhere but here_.

Finally, the bat made contact. I heard the solid _thunk_ of flesh giving way to metal, and the man was thrown to his side. I looked back as he was settling on the ground.

"He told you," I said.

Larry ignored me. "Say it again."

"2-4-1-9-8-0-1-8-9!" the man screamed hoarsely.

" _Stop_ ," I said, louder this time. "He told you! He gave you the numbers!"

"Did he?" Larry glanced at me, a wicked enjoyment in his eyes. "You think he was telling the truth? Do you think he values the lives of his children?"

"I told you, I told you," the man pleaded in Russian, gasping from the blow that had taken him in the ribs. His eyes were bloodshot. "Please, please, please. I told you! I told you!"

Larry handed me the bat and crouched down again, drawing a knife from his belt. I wrapped my hands tight around the grip. What was he going to do? Why was he still tormenting this man? Was he going to kill him like he killed that cop?

"Easy," Larry murmured, sliding his knife down the bindings on his arms and cutting them loose. His voice was a whisper, almost believably gentle. "Say it again."

"2-4-1-9-8-0-1-8-9," the man whispered in response, his eyes glued to Larry's face.

"Okay. Good talking to you."

Larry stood up and left the room, left me standing there with a metal bat, while the man with the numbers laid on his side, sobbing softly to himself. For a long moment I was too frozen to move – wondering what I had been prepared to do to stop this, wondering why I had let it go on so long – and then the bat slipped out of my fingers and rattled on the floor. I followed Larry, stiff-legged, out of the factory, and got into the car that he had stolen. As I folded my hands in my lap, I realized I was shaking.

"You did good in there, kid. I like our whole 'good cop, bad cop' routine."

"I wasn't-" I looked over, disgusted by his calm. "You threatened kids!"

"Let me tell you something, Michael. When you make a threat, you better believe it yourself. Now, I wasn't really going to hurt those kids, but I had to make him believe I was. So you have to believe – if only for a moment – that you'll make good. Without that, words are just words."

"But-"

"Don't 'but' me, boy," Larry snapped. "I'm trying to teach you how to survive out there, how to get the job done. You keep that sensitive soul shit to yourself. I could have done a lot worse, and other people would have. I did as much as I needed to verify that he was telling the truth."

His tone made me silent, but he kept talking all the way back to the city.

"You have to be tough with these people, fearless. Never show them how soft you are inside – _especially_ you. Instead, let them see that rage you got building up in there. Let them think you're as merciless as they come. Information is best gained through deception, but when you have no time or no patience, you use _fear_."

In the hotel room, we went through out normal nightly ritual. Larry called out phrases in Russian and I translated them, and when I got one wrong, he brought out the paintball gun. And then we practiced Krav Maga for over an hour, until my body was as tired as my mind.

When I finally laid down, I couldn't close my eyes. I kept seeing that man with his bloodshot eyes, kept seeing him wince. I kept leading that girl into the alley, imagining what a worse man might do to her. I imagined someone sweet talking my little brother, leading him into some alley. And I wondered if I was still a good man because of what I had witnessed today. I was honing talents that led to people getting hurt. I was being taught _how_ to hurt. It was beginning to seem that people could not know the things I knew, do the things I did, and still be good at the core. Gradually, that 'sensitive soul,' as Larry liked to call it, was hardening into stone.

How long would it be before I could look at a suffering person and feel nothing? How long would it be before I could lead a girl like Ramona into an alley and end her life?

How long would it be until I was just like Larry?


	24. The Girl in the Yellow Dress

**The Girl in the Yellow Dress.**

 **New York City, New York, USA.**

 **September of 1990.**

In the real world, bullets move through people. Someone perches in a window twenty stories above their target and spends hours staring at a concrete square, watching masses of people pass through the crosshairs of their scope, until that one face, that one person, catches their attention. Gently, almost like a caress, they move their fingers to the trigger, and stabilize the rifle with their free hand. One breath in, one breath out. One muscle twitch, and the gun goes off.

In the real world a bullet is moving too quickly to be seen. It races through the air, downward, tugged a bit by the wind. But the shooter has accommodated for every variable, and within seconds of pulling the trigger, the bullet finds its target. It rips through the chest cavity of the victim, crushing the bones in its wake, emerging with such force that it leaves a gaping hole in their back. But it keeps on going, even after the job has been done. It breaks through the ribs, through a dusky gray suit, and into the belly of someone who had just crossed behind the victim. It touches the thin, satiny fabric of her dress – a yellow dress – and finally stops somewhere inside of her. It sits there, a burning piece of metal, while the victims realize what has happened to them.

First to go down is the original target. He slips to his knees, his body telling him that he has just been injured, his heart beating frantically, out of control, electrical signals trying to jump the fresh gap the bullet put in it. He dies before he hits the ground, because his heart stops, and his muscles have not yet realized they should relax. He sits there stiffly on his knees, staring ahead in shock, his briefcase still in his hand.

She hits the ground second, crying out, because her injury is not as suddenly fatal. She claws at the blood blossoming over her yellow dress, like some kind of macabre flower erupting from inside, and the look on her face is something that nightmares are made of. In the cross of the scope, it was easy to see how young she was, how previously untouched. It was easy to watch her face lose all its color, her legs flail uselessly, and then go still. I could not hear her crying, but I knew what it would sound like. She was gaping like a fish on land when the first victim, the dead victim, fell backward on top of her. His muscles had finally let him go.

But no matter how bad it got, no matter how the girl cried and screamed and writhed on the ground, I could not look away. I knew that there would never be anything like this moment again. It could never be matched. It could never be outdone.

She was not alone out there. She had separated only briefly from her family, who now surrounded her, their faces just as colorless. She was freed of the dead man, and a woman took his place, sobbing over her and trying to keep the blood in. People were on their phones, looking up, waiting for more shots to ring through the crowd. But it was just one shot – one shot, two victims.

What had I done?

I slid back into the room, boneless, and tugged my rifle down on top of me. It was heavy and hot, searing the tops of my thighs, but I could hardly feel it. I felt sick. I felt numb. I felt like I had been the victim, like I had a hole in my chest. It was like the world had rocked on its hinges and gravity was all wrong, and I was unable to get up.

Larry came into the room after a few minutes, leaning over me, saying some things that made no sense. He took the rifle and packed it away. He looked out the window and scowled.

"Come on. Get up. Get up!" He kicked me. "Kid, get your ass up!" He kicked me again.

It was enough to get me moving. We fled the building together, blending with the crowd down below and getting out before the cops could shut down the area. But on the first safe street, way beyond suspicion, I stopped.

"I have to go back," I said.

Larry grabbed my shoulder and half-dragged me down the sidewalk. "Shut up. Keep walking."

"No." I jerked away from him and avoided his hands when he tried to wrangle me again. I was reasonably afraid of Larry, but whatever he was saying failed to register. I was only thinking about the girl, lying there on the pavement with the life draining out of her.

I turned and ran and knew instinctually that my mentor would not follow. Larry would never put himself in danger like this. But I had to go back. I had to see her again.

She was still lying there when I joined the crowd of onlookers surrounding the square, but an ambulance had just arrived. Now I could hear all the sounds that the scope failed to translate – the whispering, the shocked sobs, the babies crying.

Her family crying.

What had I done?

I stood there watching, numb to their pain, as the crying girl was put in the ambulance. I heard the paramedics talking and knew immediately, unquestionably, that she was going to die. She had lost a lot of blood already and the bullet was lodged in her spine. Her heart was beating out of control and that yellow dress was completely red. She was dying, but still fighting. I knew what it looked like when someone was on the way out. I knew the way they moved.

It was unwise for the shooter to hang around the scene of the crime, covered as they were in gunshot residue, white as a sheet and looking guilty. But there were so many people that the police only shooed us away. I staggered along with the crowd but kept my eyes on the family. Police were leading them into cars, asking them questions.

I heard their names, the name of the girl – but nothing registered. It was unreal.

What had I done?

XxX

It took me three days to get the whole story. Her name was Kenna Crane and she was sixteen years, four months, and five days old. She had dreams to be a writer and everyone who had known her described her as an angel – or at least that was what the news reported. Even if some of it was not true, even if she turned out to be a terrible person, she was still sixteen and she was still dead. She died on the way to the hospital, in her mother's arms, in a yellow dress.

Her family lived outside of the city and they never came downtown much. Her father thought it was too dangerous. But they were meeting her aunt for an early dinner and wanted to surprise her at her job – at the office building in front of the square. Kenna had dashed across the square to run up the stairs because she saw her aunt coming out of the building. I hadn't seen her because she was running, and my scope was narrowly focused on my target. Every night they showed her face on the news asking for information on what happened in the square that day.

Larry found me on the third night. He picked the lock on my hotel room, strolled in, opened a new bottle of whiskey I had left sitting on the coffee table, and sat across from me. We both had a view of the skyscrapers outside, of the sun and the beautiful autumn sky.

"What are you doing, kid?"

His question hung in the air as he guzzled down the whiskey. I had bought it for myself, but never opened it. I didn't have a taste for alcohol.

I had no answers for him. I had killed and killed and it had never bothered me like this before. I had sprayed people down with rifles in the desert, watched Larry gun down a police officer and helped cover it up, witnessed torture and torment. Why was this one affecting me so much?

It burned inside, like a fire in my gut, like that bullet must have burned in that little girl. If I had rechecked his surroundings, fired a second later, she would still be alive. But I had been hunting this man for weeks, plotting out his movements, trying to find another weak point to take him down. He was only ever in the open when he was in the square. It had to be the square. Why was she running? Why couldn't she have walked to see her aunt? Why did they have to come into the city that day? Why did I have to go to witness her final moments?

Larry could not possibly understand how I felt, but he might have been trying. He looked at me with sunken, concerned eyes, more like a father than usual. "It happens sometimes."

"Not to me."

There. That was it.

It wasn't supposed to be _me_ gunning down civilians. I wasn't supposed to be the one single-mindedly shooting people in broad daylight. I wasn't supposed to be the one with my eye to the scope of a rifle, scouting a crowd. But I was. It _was_ me. I had done this.

How did I even get here?

"When I first got in, I was young like you." Larry took another sip of his whiskey. Only a third of the bottle remained. "It's not the torture or the failure that keeps you up at night – it's when you win and you lose at the same time. You got your guy, but you killed that kid. You killed her. That's on you, and it always will be."

"Are you trying to make me feel better?" I asked bitterly. There was no bite in my words. I let my face sink into my hands, my eyes burning.

"No. Nothing can do that."

I looked up at him, saw the sincerity in his words, and left the table. Larry was not the person to take moral advice from. I went into the bathroom and locked myself in, leaning over the sink to stare at myself in the mirror. I could have sworn I saw him looking back at me – those cold blue eyes, that hard scowling mouth. And he was right. Three days in, and the numbness was fading.

I was in too deep. It was obvious.

The man in the mirror was not the same man who had walked into that office in Panama. I was older, darker, with lines beneath my eyes and an untrimmed beard. There was a coldness in me that I didn't recognize, that was horrifying. Remnants of my younger self tried their damndest to shine through, to be seen, but covering them was the mask that Larry helped me make.

I saw the girl in the yellow dress lying beneath the body of my target, a living scene behind my eyes, and held onto my guilt. I held onto it, but it was too late. It was too late.

Larry knocked on the door. It sounded like he was leaning against it.

"We have four new assignments in Russia, if you're up for it. We can go do that – save American lives – or you can fall apart in there."

It was too late.

I looked through the mask in the mirror and wondered how long those untouched parts of me would linger. I forced myself to stop thinking – to stop thinking of how that family would do now that their child was dead, to stop thinking of the blood blossoming on that yellow dress. I shut it down, and pushed it away, and opened the bathroom door.

Larry put his arm around my shoulders and smiled at me.


	25. Sam Axe

**Sam Axe**.

 **January of 1992.**

 **Desabafar, Bolivia.**

Desabafar was a village lost to time. Its buildings were made of clay, its signs hand-painted, its only road bumpy and strained by persistent roots. It had five cars, all of them beaten and dusty, and an abundance of horses and donkeys pinned beneath shelters along the fields. In every direction, the ground was like gravel, with boulders nestled between spiny scrub plants, and dry soil stirring at the winds that came off the distant mountains. It had a dozen or so houses, a general store, and an inn at the end of the road. It seemed perfectly rustic, a snapshot of a simpler time, but the more I looked, the more I noticed.

I only saw children in Desabafar, running around in shorts, wearing corporate-branded shirts. I also found locked doors and pulled shutters everywhere I turned. I knew there had to be people in the town because of the gas generators popping and sparking outside the businesses, but everyone was avoiding me – except for one old man peeking at me through an upstairs window.

It was nearly dusk when I gave up on recon and went to the inn, the only door that had been open so far. It had been a long ride out here, certainly a journey from Russia, and I had barely slept since I left the last airport, so my reflexes were not perfect.

Someone was standing just inside the inn. He grabbed me and threw me against the wall, a hand like iron closing around my throat.

"Who are you?"

His accent was unmistakably American. I held myself back from any countermeasures, staying as still as possible to get a good look at my attacker – and keep my windpipe intact. He was wearing a decorated Navy uniform.

"Westen," I croaked.

His eyes narrowed. "Number?"

"4768-782."

He released me, and like a spineless jellyfish I slithered to the ground. I rubbed my throat and coughed, simultaneously impressed by his strength and pissed off that he had gotten the jump on me. If he had been an enemy, I would be dead.

"Just gotta be sure, kid. You never know. You must be our spook."

He was definitely stronger than me, and faster than a man his size had any right to be. His face was like the one on the army recruitment posters – a strong, American chin, rugged good looks, hard blue eyes, and an easy smile.

He crouched down, frowning at me. "Sorry for the… er, greeting. You can never be too careful."

I eyed the knife on his belt. "Is that Navy issue?"

"Oh, no. Bessy here is special." He smiled, drawing the serrated knife from its sheath. It looked like it could do some real damage. "I got her in Kuwait – won her in a poker match, if you can believe that. I've opened more beer bottles with this knife than I care to admit." He sheathed it, smiled, and held out his hand, "Sam Axe."

"Michael."

Sam looked at me harder, squinting. "God, what are you, twenty? Did they start recruiting spooks right out of basic?"

Larry would have something clever to shoot back, but all I could do was flounder, "I was a ranger."

"Right, right. Whatever you say, pal." He turned away from me. "But, listen, sorry to make you come all this way for nothing. We got this handled. _Se puede ir_."

"I don't speak Spanish."

"Really? Well, I think the language here is Portuguese anyway. I said you can go." Sam turned back, a crinkled piece of paper in his hand.

"You found him?"

He cocked one bushy eyebrow. "Er, no. But we don't need any more hands coming in and messing things up. Nothing personal."

Sam seemed to be trying to piss me off, and it was working. I wanted to punch him in that ridiculous jaw of his. But I was not a teenager anymore.

"You messed things up well enough on your own."

Sam smiled, his jaw a little tighter this time. "Like I said, your services won't be needed."

"That's not your decision."

"Whatever, kid. Just stay out of our way."

I looked around the empty lobby, "Where's your team?"

"Where's _yours_?"

"I work alone."

Sam snorted. "You know, that is such a _spy_ thing to say. My guys are upstairs. We rented up all the rooms, though. Too bad. But I hear the next town over has rooms available."

"I'm sure I'll figure something out."

"Fine."

"Fine."

Sam was not going to win this battle of wills. I turned the couch so I had a good view of both the stairs and the front door, and laid down with my feet hanging off the end. I rarely slept these days, and that sleep was light and troubled. When those SEALs came down, I would hear it.

XxX

I woke up soaked in sweat. It was a warm day and the hotel doors were propped open. I stared out at the street for several minutes before I realized I was not hot, but I had been having a nightmare – and I was not alone in the lobby anymore.

Sam was there, digging into a banana, watching me with practiced indifference.

"Bad dream?" he prompted.

I sat up, fluffing out my hair. It was obviously early, but dawn had already come. I could see the outline of several sets of shoulders beyond the front desk, in a little conference room. I ignored my company and went to join them, hovering by the doorway. When they noticed me, the conversation stopped, and three sets of eyes hit me all at once. Sam slipped in behind me, settling in the furthest chair, still munching on his breakfast.

"Westen, I presume," the closest SEAL said.

"Yes. Where are we?"

"We have a witness who saw the asset being taken up the mountain on foot."

"Up the mountain?" It was an odd place to take a captive, especially when being pursued by an elite military force. It was also dangerous this time of year because of the rain.

"There's another village up there, with a private airport."

"You think they're taking him out of the country? Why?"

"That's not relevant," the SEAL responded.

"It is, if you want to know what these guys are really up to. Why would they take him out of the country? Bolivia doesn't have an extradition treaty with the US."

"There have been talks," Sam said, though he looked curious. "What are you getting at?"

"Why would they go that way? The road I came in on leads to a few major cities. They could have driven him to an airport and left the country by now, if that was what they wanted to do."

"We've been watching that road," a burly SEAL named Thompson responded.

"Odds are your guy is still nearby. You have a hundred miles of open terrain in every direction, and only a few vehicles in town – most of them would get run down by your cars in a few minutes, tops. So where could they go? What could they do?"

"Go into the mountains," Thompson responded, almost in a growl.

"Or make us go into the mountains, and then skip their merry way out of town," I said.

"So, what do you propose we do, Spook? Split up and search for clues?"

"No. I'm saying you make it look like you all went up the mountain, and then see what comes crawling out of the shadows back here."

Sam snorted, pulling out another banana he had stashed in his bag. "If you're so sure he's wrong, we can all go up together. But if he's right, it sounds like a lost asset and a lot of paperwork." He took a big bite, smiling, speaking through a mouthful, "But that's just the potassium talking."

Thompson looked between them, considering. And then he smiled to himself. "How about you and the spook go up and see what you can see."

Sam smiled, too, but there was something else going on behind his amused mask. "Hey, anything to stretch my legs. I feel like all we do around here is sit and eat."

"No, Sam, that's all _you_ do around here," Thompson responded, not unkindly. It was hard to tell if these were good-natured jabs, or if these two hated each other right under the surface. "I want you to scout the foothills at the base of the mountain and see if you can find any signs of our asset. But also keep an eye on the town, make note of the comings and goings. We'll go up together, and then leave you two at dusk to sneak back into town."

"Oh, a hike _and_ a stakeout? It's my lucky day." Sam shoved the rest of his food into his mouth and spoke through it, spraying the unfortunate nearly SEAL with tiny pieces of it, "Sure beats kicking down every door in this town."

"You haven't searched the town?" I asked, interrupting their banter.

All eyes were on me again. Thompson answered. "No. We have a delicate agreement with the government to search for our asset. We can't go around terrorizing the locals."

"Last thing we need is an international crisis," Sam agreed.

"So, you have no idea if he's hiding in the next house over?" I demanded.

"Whoa, current status is unknown or captive, not in the wind." Sam stood up, brushing his shirt off and tossing a banana peel in the trash. "And yes, we have no idea if he's just squatting in the house next door, because we can't officially force our way in and none of the locals are cooperating. If you ask me, something smells fishy about all of this."

Thompson snorted. "We should move. I want everyone to see us. But you stay for now." He looked at me. "We'll switch with you at dusk. Stay here and keep an eye out. Maybe go to the roof."

He left, and the SEALs followed – all but Sam. He dug around in his pockets, looking disappointed when he didn't find yet another banana hidden there. "I swore I stowed some peanuts in here somewhere. Did I drop it when I kicked your ass last night?"

Something about his tone made me smile despite how tense the other SEALs were. He seemed to be the opposite of his colleagues, and the opposite of me.

"See you out there," Sam added as he left the room.


	26. Brotherhood

**Brotherhood**

 **January of 1992.**

 **Opiekun, Bolivia.**

I had never seen a sunset quite like this before. I had been so focused on starting the mission last night that the beauty of this place was lost on me. Opiekun was surrounded by boulder fields, congregations of small rocks scattered over rolling foothills. When the sun started to set, each boulder cast its own shadow that slowly grew over the plains like groping fingers, and by the time the sun reached the shoulder of the mountain, the shadows created a crisscrossing pattern that overwhelmed everything. Between perimeter scans, I watched the shadows move, wondering if my friends back home would ever see anything like this.

Shortly after nightfall, the plains took on a new, more sinister look. Hundreds of boulders sat perfectly still, cloaking the world around them in shadow, hiding threats and making the landscape nearly impossible to navigate. It was the perfect time to stage an escape.

A sharp whistle came twenty minutes after the sun was gone, alerting me to the return of the SEALs. I never saw them, never heard them, but suddenly there were two on the roof with me, crawling across the sandstone until they were right upon the edge. One was Thompson, and the other was lying on his nametag, stone-faced and silent.

"No sign of a party moving toward the mountain," Thompson said, his voice barely audible, "Go northeast and Axe will find you. We'll stay here and keep an eye on the southern road. Sam has the light. One flash for stand down, two for move." He shoved a vest toward me. "Put this on. I know spies like to go naked, but I smell gunpowder in our future."

Listening to his breathless rundown gave me a jump of adrenaline. The planning part of our mission was over. It was time for the chase. I strapped the vest on and left the roof.

It took me over an hour to navigate the boulder field and go around to get back to the foothills, where Sam was waiting, to avoid anyone seeing me leave town. If anyone was watching, they would think the whole team was up in the mountains, following that witness' tip. Now would be the time to move the asset.

Thompson had only told me to go northeast, with no other indication of where Sam Axe might be hiding, so I stumbled on through the foothills for a while looking and listening for any signs of the SEAL. He could be nearby, watching me, laughing at me, or he could be much closer to the mountain, or much closer to town. It was impossible to gauge distances in this boulder-filled wasteland.

But then I heard the bird.

It sounded oddly familiar, and certainly out of place here. I had only heard a few harsh bird calls since arriving in Bolivia. This was more of a trill, a short, whistling song.

I followed it, pausing every now and then. Each time I stopped, the sound came again, drawing me closer until I nearly tripped over Sam.

"Look who came to party," Sam whispered, patting a flat patch of rock beside him and handing me a pair of binoculars. "We only have three pairs, so don't break 'em. Calibration is on the top, put that strap around your neck. Town is that way."

I slipped the strap over my neck and put the lenses over my eyes, immediately fascinated by the way the world now looked. It was green – an entire field of green, with big dark green boulders and a dark green sky and pale green buildings in the town. Even at regular magnification, the details in the horizon were crisp. I leaned over to look at Sam. His face was made up of reddish outlines as the goggles tried to assess his shape. He must have been watching me stumble around out there as a pile of red rectangles.

Sam smiled, motioning down the hill. "I said, town is that way."

Our stakeout began, but we did not lay silently on that hilltop.

"I heard that bird out in Florida once while we were docked. I thought you might recognize it."

"How did you…?" I had never told him where I was from. Larry had told me to never, ever admit anything personal about myself unless I wanted my family dead.

"Relax. I have connections, too. Spies aren't the only ones allowed to know things. Listen, Michael – can I call you Michael? – I think we got off to a bad start. You know, me going pro-wrestler on your ass, and making you sleep in the lobby, and all that. We should just start over."

I was silent, scanning the road outside of the village.

"Here, I brought a peace offering. Thompson said not to bring any food out here, but he has to know by now that I'm always packing. Deer jerky, all the way from home." He nudged my arm with a plastic package. "Plus, your stomach is gonna give our location away."

It might have been more graceful and mysterious to turn down the offer, but I was ravenous. I set my binoculars down and dug in. "Thanks."

"I'm a Michigan boy myself. I can't stand this heat. But you must feel right at home."

He was probing, maybe trying to further verify his information, but I left the bait dangling. Something was going on in the town. Four roughly people-shaped blobs were moving around by the edge of town, heading toward the foothills. But they were not on the same path the SEALs had taken earlier. I traced the path up, and it seemed to go west toward a distant forest.

Almost at the same time I noticed the people, there was a flash from one of the rooftops in town. Sam brought out a flashlight and glanced at me. "I'll tell them to move."

"No, wait." I tracked the blobs. Something was making me uneasy. "We should follow them."

"Follow them where? We can take them down now."

"Something about this feels wrong." I scanned the town again. "There's no way to know if the asset is with them from here, and if your team moves, their location is blown. We only get one shot."

Sam spun the light around in his hand, considering. "Right." He flashed it once, and the answer was also one flash.

"Well, let's get a closer look," Sam said, resigned.

Sam and I left out hiding spot and darted between boulders, moving adjacent to the traveling people, but ahead of them on the trail. We stopped on a ridge, looking down at the group.

When they were almost up to us, Sam whispered, "Oh, yeah, that's him. That's Honeywell."

" _Honeywell_?" I wondered. It was one of those operations where I was supposed to know little and ask no questions. I was given a task – assist the SEALs in bringing the asset back to the US – and I was expected to get it done. I had seen his face, but never heard his name.

Honeywell was a name Larry sometimes mumbled in his sleep, his hand clenching his knife.

The group neared, and we both slipped out of sight, hugging the shadows and barely breathing. The men were not speaking and barely made a sound as they passed by. Honeywell did not appear to be a prisoner – he was walking on his own, appearing relaxed.

I looked at Sam and found the same realization on his face. He flashed the signal twice this time.

"Traitor," Sam whispered, scorn in his voice.

Up ahead there was a bend, and we could not see the path beyond it. I nudged Sam and nodded toward it. "We need to keep up."

We walked shoulder-to-shoulder, stepping onto the path behind the group with guns drawn. Each step around the bend made me more aware that our backup had not yet arrived, and that it was the two of us against four hostiles in the dark.

Several minutes passed as we followed a winding trail, and a ravine opened up on the left. We heard the group in front but did not see them.

And then, the sound.

Sam brushed against a dead bush, and the limbs all scraped against one another, producing the first major sound in this silent mission.

We looked at each other, equally surprised, and then the group of four had come back around the corner with guns of their own. Sam fired first, clipping someone in the leg. The gunshots were blinding in the dark, flashing over and over. I hit the ground and fired up. Someone screamed. Someone fell into the ravine and made a sickening _thunk_ at the bottom.

Sam struck a flare and made the trail a shuddering red, showing two more attackers, and the asset on the ground, clutching his shin. They were too close too fast to shoot. I jumped to my feet, avoiding a kick, and grabbed my attacker by the shoulders.

He headbutted me, dazing me, and shoved me backwards.

I scrambled, trying to aim my gun, but the ground was suddenly gone from beneath my feet. I flailed, striking crumbling dirt, and slid into the ravine.

I was only sliding for a moment, though, because a hand locked around my wrist. Sam was there, on his belly, flailing his other arm and shouting at me. "Grab my hand!"

I thrust my other arm forward and grabbed his free hand so that I was suspended, my feet scrabbling at dirt that just kept giving way. My shoulders ached. Fear gripped me like it never had before. There was nothing below me but a long fall and certain death.

"I got you, kid!" Sam shouted. Another SEAL appeared behind him and started hauling him backward, dragging me up the side of the ravine. Sam never let go.

When I was on flat ground again, I rolled onto my back, my heart hammering. I grasped my throat, sure that the veins within were going to burst.

Sam sat down beside me, laughing. " _Whew_! Warn me before you do that next time."

His laughing brought me back down to earth, and soon I was laughing with him. He was ridiculous, but I was grateful.

His team had arrived in the middle of the fight, just as I was going backward into the ravine and Sam was diving in to catch me. Two of the four men we had been pursuing were dead, one was unconscious, and the asset had a fresh leg wound, but otherwise the mission was counted as a success.

We headed back out of the foothills, to the village, where lights had come on all over in response to the nearby gunfire. No one was curious enough to leave their houses, but I saw faces in the windows as we passed.

In the little hotel, the captives sat tied to chairs in the conference room. Thompson went up to the roof with a satellite phone to call in and report their success, and request an extraction, and the two other SEALs sat guarding the asset. I stood by the front windows, looking out at the town, and Sam rummaged around in his bags.

"Still can't find those peanuts?" I wondered.

Sam laughed. "Well, no, but I was actually looking for something else."

I glanced at him, uncertain, "Thank you… for saving my life."

"No problem."

"I thought you didn't like spies."

"Hey, when we're fighting for the same things, we're brothers, right?" He pulled out a glass beer bottle, his face lighting up. "Ahh! I brought one of these to celebrate a job well done. Want some?"

"No." I followed him into the miniscule kitchen. "How did you guys get this place to yourselves, anyway?"

"Paid the owner to go home for a few days." Same pulled out a glass, popped a few ice chips in, and poured his beer over it. "Listen, kid, you're not so bad for a spook. I don't offer to share my beer with just anyone." He brought out another glass and put ice in it, pouring a small amount over it. "So, drink with me."

It seemed to mean a lot to him, so I took the glass, clinked it to his, and drank. Sam looked pleased. He downed most of his in one swallow.

"Now all we gotta do is wait for sunrise, and get the hell out of Bolivia."


	27. Soft Skills

**Soft Skills**

 **January of 1992.**

 **Opiekun, Bolivia.**

"James Michael Honeywell."

I stroked the tab of the folder on the desk between us with something near to reverence. I had been sitting with him for hours waiting for this folder to come in, looking at his smug face and hoping beyond hope that there was something I could use to make him talk. Here it was. Black and white, still warm from the fax machine. It took everything I had not to grin at him.

He sat in the chair across from me, tied at the wrists and ankles, his clothes and hair perfectly neat. He showed no sign that he had a fresh hole in his leg, or that he was worried he might spend the rest of his short life in a black prison. On the contrary, he stared into my eyes, and I stared into his, both of us impassive. Honeywell had dead eyes, tired eyes, but I had seen faces like his before. Dead men looked me in my dreams every night. I was no stranger to it.

"Five feet, two inches tall… must have stopped growing after puberty." I ran my finger down the first page, occasionally pausing to note a detail. "Brown eyes… they look more hazel to me."

Honeywell had hazel eyes and reddish hair, and a short, tidy beard. He could have passed for many ethnicities with his relatively plain, ambiguous face – but the file said he was born in Russia.

"Saint Petersburg. Big city. But you only spent… two years there. Your parents were gangsters, gunned down while you slept in your crib." I scanned the paragraph, in all capital letters, that detailed his movements in early childhood. "You were adopted by a couple in Yekaterinburg… but they moved into the countryside. North. Probably further north than you had ever been. I always tell people that the real beauty of living in Russia is in the north."

I looked up, and said in Russian, "Just you and the winter."

Honeywell took note of my pronunciation. I could see apprehension in him, finally. His cold mask was broken by the most human of expressions – curiosity.

"But I think the really important part of this folder is what you did in college. You had dreams to become a nuclear engineer. Your admission letter is very… poignant. Dreams to be more than your parents were, dreams to make your country proud. But when you were caught in Tallahassee with known terrorists, you flipped. You said you were innocent. You just wanted to make some extra money. You had no intention of hurting anyone. You were given the option to work for us, or rot in a prison cell. You chose to betray your homeland."

His gaze did not falter. Was he ashamed of what he had done? Did he have any regrets? Was he ever really working for the United States, or was he just biding his time and planning his escape back to his home? I had no faith in his loyalty.

"Why did your parents give you an American name?"

Honeywell blinked, and said nothing.

"We have no names on file for them. Who were they? How did the police know they were gangsters? How did anyone know anything about you when they found you covered in gunpowder and blood in that back bedroom?"

His eyes narrowed slightly, almost unnoticeably. If I had not been staring into them, I would have missed it. It was an important detail to me. I was provoking him.

"So, you have an American name, but you were raised in Russia, and caught in America associating with known terrorists. Have you ever heard the term sleeper, James? Is that what you are? If so, you are the worst sleeper I have ever met. I have known _shpala_ who were like ghosts."

Finally, he spoke. It might have been his ego shining through, or an effort to unnerve me, but hearing his voice was a turning point in this interview.

"I am like ghost, boy."

"You say that, but I see you now." I reached over and poked his arm for effect, and his lip curled in displeasure. I saw it now, his personality shining through. Honeywell had a temper.

I flipped through his file, picking up names and dates as I skimmed the pages. His specialty was weaponization and he had developed a few nasty devices for the United States over his ten years as their puppet. He was dangerously clever and creative. Some of his personal notes had been attached to the file, photocopied versions of sprawling Russian script. I knew little about his science, but the genius was not lost on me.

When I came to the newest section, I stopped and gave it a proper read. Honeywell had a family. He had a wife, a son, and two daughters, all of them living in the United States.

But the details here were critical.

"You have a beautiful family."

Honeywell smiled, but the things he thought he knew had already fallen apart. His cockiness made me smile in return, and his own expression faltered.

"Unusual for a sleeper to take on a family – well, I take that back. I think the best sleepers always establish families to deepen their cover. But not you. No." I laid a few of the photos on the desk between us, black and white and grainy from the low-tech way they had arrived, but still meaningful. "You go on picnics and take your kids to the park. Look at that. You look at them with all the love in the world – all the love of a parent."

Honeywell kept his eyes on me, not bothering to look down at the photos. He had seen them all before, of course, because they had come from his own home.

"You tried to get them out of the country when this all went down. Your plan was perfect. But once you went missing, the assumption was that you had been abducted, so your family was put on lockdown. Your guys went in… and it was chaos."

He was paying more attention now. I noticed his posture become more erect. His fingers drummed on the desk. He was waiting for me to finish, waiting for me to tell him what had happened when four armed Russian spies barged into a house full of United States Marines, with his family in the middle of all of it.

I lowered my voice to a sinister murmur, imitating my dark mentor. "Have you ever seen what the spray of an automatic weapon does to a house? It just takes one slip, and a thousand rounds pierce every wall, every door, every appliance."

His jaw tightened. "You lie."

"I do not," I snapped. "You're damn lucky your family was moved before your guys made it to that house. You would have been stumbling around in shackles trying to put the pieces of your kids back together."

Honeywell scowled, "What is the point of this? What do you want?"

We had finally come to this, the point of our conversation. I had noticed how calm Honeywell and his only remaining bodyguard were and suspected they had something else planned. While the SEALs prepared the hotel for siege and arranged an airlift out of this place, I sat with Honeywell and tried to find out what we were up against.

"I know you have contingency plans." I glanced at the back window, where I could still see the darkness through the frilly curtains. "I want you to tell me what they are."

Honeywell smiled again, back to his cockiness, and said nothing.

"You know we have your family."

He snorted. "You will not harm them. Your government is soft."

"I agree, and if I were a soldier, my threats would be meaningless." I drew one of the pictures of his family back to me, tapping my index finger on the youngest, the infant girl. "I work alone, above the law. You have people like me in your homeland… I've met a few, killed a few. Ivanov, Sokolov, Popov, Orlov… Do you know these men?"

Honeywell seemed to recognize a few of the names I listed, but there was no way for him to know their fate. The names were powerful on their own.

"If you don't cooperate, I can tell you what will happen. I'll survive. I'll go home. I'll hunt everyone who ever had the misfortune to love you. I'll dent the walls with their bodies. There will be no safe place for you, and no safe place for them."

Honeywell was impassive.

"I care more about the lives of those men out there than I do about your family. If I have to make my point with blood, I will. You betrayed your country once before because you were a selfish coward," – that provoked a scowl from Honeywell – "But now you can think of someone other than yourself. You can save your family."

Honeywell snorted, disdainful, "You have high opinion of yourself."

"I was told to bring you back to the United States, dead or alive, by any means necessary. If you escape now, so be it. I will do whatever it takes to force you out of hiding, even if I have to string your kids up in the middle of Times Square."

Honeywell sat quietly for the longest time, and I sat with him, saying nothing, doing nothing, not even fidgeting. I had a quiet rage swirling through me, calling for violence, asking me to make good on my threats. But I also felt the shame of my own words, the weight of my own darkness. Larry said when you threatened people you had to mean it, so I did, if only for a moment – and that moment was enough to make me feel like a monster.

"If I cooperate, my family will be safe, and left alone."

I nodded, "I can send them away to start a new life, where no one from your past will find them."

He ground his teeth, and then said, "An extraction team is on the way. When they do not find us in the mountains, they will come here."

"What kind of team?"

"Wetwork. Five men."

"Who's leading it? Someone I would know?"

"Fedorov – Mikhail Fedorov."

"What else?"

"I know nothing else." Honeywell twisted his lips into a withering frown, and he finally seemed to lose his confidence. "I was only told to be here."

The SEALs were waiting in the lobby. I had taken the time to memorize their names at last. Sam and Thompson were the most experienced, and the other two were Donald and Newton, who were younger and bolder. Thompson mostly did the talking, Sam mostly did the eating, and Donald and Newton played cards into the night.

I left the door open and Sam leaned around me to look at Honeywell, squinting. "What'd you do to him? Does he still have all his fingers?"

Sam was worried about me being alone with Honeywell. He thought I was going to torture him.

"We just talked. He told me there's a Russian extraction team on the way here – probably already surrounding this area. They'll take advantage of the darkness to surround us, and strike at dawn."

Thompson touched the gun on his hip, "How many?"

"Five, led by Mikhail Fedorov. Heard of him?"

"I have." Sam crossed his arms, scowling. I had never seen him look so menacing. "He led a team against our operation in San Jose and killed our extraction target."

"We can handle five," Donald said.

"Barricade the doors," Thompson ordered. "And put those damn cards away."

I took a look around, not liking what I saw. "In a place like this, they'll breach one of the non-load-bearing walls with a ring of explosives."

"You're the expert. Tell us what to do."

I began combing the hotel, looking for weak points. Everything Larry had taught me about Russian military tactics came to life in my head and I drew out maps for the SEALs. We moved book cases to weak walls, locked the doors and covered the windows, and moved the hostages to the interior closet in the lobby, where the door frame would help shield them from gunfire. We took up behind the front desk, two stationed on either side, and one in the center. Behind us was a hollow wall leading to the staircase and then the outside, unlikely to be breached.

When sunrise neared in the next few minutes, I stood in the center of the hotel lobby, alert to any subtle changes in the outside world. The SEALs waited like living stones, grasping their guns, having the discipline to barely make a sound when they breathed. Just watching them wait there gave me faith that we could come out of the siege alive.

But that faith dwindled as the sun rose.


	28. The Siege

**The Siege.**

 **January of 1992.**

 **Opiekun, Bolivia.**

Children present during times of war sometimes give confusing interviews, having failed to notice the fires, the carnage, the explosions, and telling the asker instead about a vine that was growing up the wall in their bedroom. Even if they were present and bore witness to the execution of their own parents, their siblings, their teachers and priests, they insisted on giving some arbitrary detail. It got written off a lot before modern medicine, before warfare evolved and tapes of calm, happy children dancing through minefields emerged. Now they call it sensory diversion – a last ditch effort by the mind to preserve the self, to look past the bigger picture, to avoid the whole story in order to survive one chapter.

It happened to me in the hotel hallway.

I was on the ground, fighting for my life with a Russian agent, refusing to give up any ground to him and unable to take any for myself. Gunfire sprayed all around us, grenades went off and shook the building, but for the moment I could only see him, and he could only see me.

His eyes were like burning charcoal.

He had been hit by a grenade. He must have been. Half his face was cinders. He fought on like nothing had happened, like he was not a horror to behold. In his eyes the fire raged on, the fight for survival, the relentless urge to live.

 _He wants to kill me. He wants to kill me._

We were running out of strength – his charcoal was dying down; my arms were failing. His grip on my shoulder loosened and his knees faltered. I shoved him back a few centimeters. His fiery eyes bulged, and his hand went for my throat – I released him, horrified, as his skeletal hand came toward me. I shoved him harder, but he grabbed me again, and groped at my waist, his bones clinking over the hilt of my gun.

 _He wants to kill me. He wants to kill me._

He wrapped his hand around the hilt of my gun, and I watched as the charcoal in his eyes spread over his face. He was more dead than alive now. His skull was shriveled, his skin black as pitch. It was all I could do to hold him back, to keep him away. He yanked at my gun. He headbutted me, like a wild animal vying for freedom. Blood dripped into my eye. He loosened the gun. It started to give. His strength was returning.

When he drew the gun, the illusion shattered. I reacted the only way I could. I let him go, grabbing his wrist with one hand and his throat with the other, slamming him down as hard as I could. He was too eager, too sure of himself. Having a weapon made him bold. But I was bold, too.

He lay there, the gun he had worked so hard to take flat on the ground beneath his hand. I squeezed his throat, straining every muscle until the force was so much that he gave up choking me back and used his free hand to try and pry mine away. He released the gun. I swatted it out of reach and put my other hand to his throat – he made the worst sounds, like a stream gurgling under a rock, but I was deaf to it. I was deaf to everything.

 _He wants to kill me. He wants to kill me._

He was still at last. I lurched backward, looking carefully away from the body, trying to quell the nausea in my belly. My hands ached. Several seconds passed before I was able to grab my gun and grab the belt of grenades I had taken from him as our battle begun. And then my eyes fell on the body. He was not burned. His face was intact, his head full of hair, his eyes a somber brown, and wide open. Who was I seeing, then?

I left him lying in the hall and slung the grenades across the lobby floor, where Donald had crouched down to catch them. He saluted me, freed a grenade, and chucked it toward the massive hole in the front of the lobby, shouting, "Grenade!"

It rolled through the opening and detonated, throwing an enemy into the ceiling and filling the room with smoke. I retreated to the hall, listening.

"Need help in here!" Sam called from the back of the building.

I drew my gun and hit the two doors on either side of the hall, clearing the rooms before I went to the back. Sam Axe was bloody and wild, one hand on the charred vest of Newton, the other pointing a gun at my face. When he saw me there, he gasped his relief, and the gun clunked down out of his hand. His eyes were wet.

"He got hit by one of the secondary blasts," Sam said, holding his injured brother in his lap like a mother would a wounded child. "I tried to… I tried to help him…"

Newton was ruined, but somehow still alive. I looked pointedly at his boots, unwilling or unable to see the rest right now. I wanted nothing more than to leave and rejoin the battle, to throw myself into the fray and forget that I had come here.

But that was war. Everything was sudden and brutal, no time to think, only act.

"You have to pull it together," I said, my voice cracking. I crouched by his side, pulling his hand off of Newton and clasping my own around it. Sam was shaking. "Hey, you have to pull it together for the rest of them. I know what he means to you. I know. I do."

Sam had everything in his eyes – rage, sorrow, confusion – and he was not as good as I was at shutting it down. But he did. He laid Newton gently on the ground and stood up, his uniform crimson from the chest down. "Hell of a lot more than five guys," he said.

"Honeywell lied," I responded, though we were both well aware of that by now. "We need a plan."

We were in the kitchen, shaken by the blasts, with supplies lying everywhere. It was a cornucopia to me. Larry had taught me to cook up all kinds of nasty things from common household chemicals, and I had never wanted to play dirty more than now. I barely knew Newton – and, hell, I barely knew Sam – but seeing their connection shattered was enough for me. I let the rage run wild.

"I need… uh…" I scrambled, grabbing plastic spray bottles and doing chemistry in my head. "Give me that drain cleaner, and the dish soap. No, the bleach. Grab the bleach first."

Sam brought me what I asked for. I started emptying spray bottles and filling the bottoms of each with soap, and then pouring bleach on top. I capped them before the swirling white gas could escape and set each bottle in a line.

"What is that?" Sam asked.

"Dish soap contains ammonia, and when you add bleach you basically have mustard gas. It does a lot of damage in small spaces, but right now I'm using the gas as an explosive catalyst."

"You know that stuff kills," Sam said.

"So do guns and grenades," I looked up, finding Sam staring at me with his jaw locked. I had thought he would be ready to do anything to get back at these people for Newton, but I was wrong. He looked uncertain. "We need more firepower," I said, "I gave Donald some grenades, but if we want to keep these guys back, we need _more_."

"We have people out there, too."

"I know. I know that."

"Do you? Because you're over here making chemical weapons!"

I searched the room for a heat source, settling on a tiny gas can that had been hidden under the sink. It was just enough to fill the bottom of a small tub, just enough to dip the bottles in.

"I have-" Sam began.

"You have people out there," I snapped. "I know. I know that." I took one of the bottles and rolled it in the gasoline. "I have a plan."

"To blow us all to the next life?"

"Just trust me. You can trust me."

"Why? I know what spooks are like. You go all in for the mission, no matter who dies in the process. But I don't play that way, pal!"

His accusation hit me hard. It was pretty accurate.

"I'm not like that," I argued.

"Oh yeah? Prove it!"

"I will, if you let me do this."

I waited.

He waited.

"People matter," Sam said.

I realized I was wrong about Sam, or that I had applied something of myself to him. He was different than me, and the polar opposite of Larry. He was arguing with me, but there was not a cold, hateful light in his eyes – he was speaking from the heart, from a place of compassion. And while my training told me to go straight for Honeywell and secure him until reinforcements arrived, something in me hesitated. Larry would do that. Larry would have let those SEALs die without a second thought. And for the first time, Larry was not here.

For the first time, I could choose to be different.

Sam could never have known what I had been through, what was going on in my head. He could never understand the life I lived, the life I had chosen – could he? Larry told me that no one knew the burden spies bore, that no one could empathize, that we were doomed to spend our lives alone, save for the company of each other. It was not in our nature to trust, to bond, to love.

But he was wrong. _People matter_.

Sam was groping for understanding, trying to put his faith in me with nothing to go on. So, I made sure I meant it this time. "You can trust me."

And he did. "What can I do?"

"I need you to cover me from the hall. I'm going to the front desk."

"I'm on it."

We stepped up to the edge of the hall together, finding that things had gone suspiciously quiet. Someone was murmuring in Russian outside, coming up with a plan for the final assault. Someone was creeping along the ruined front wall, their shoes crunching on the fresh rubble.

Before it all began, I thought of my mother, and the people who would visit her house and tell her that her son was never coming home.

"We surrender!" I shouted in Russian.

Sam jumped, but stayed by my side.

Everything went silent. Even the footsteps stopped.

"Show yourself, hands on your heads!" came the response. I recognized the accent. It came from a northern province, the same area that Honeywell was raised.

I crouched and put my hands on either side of the tub of gasoline, glancing up at Sam, measuring his resolve. His eyes were hooded. He had the spray bottles in his hands, dangling by their tops.

When the time seemed right, I slung the tub across the room.

Someone shouted.

Guns went off and the sparks ignited the gasoline.

Fire roared across the entire hotel, dividing it in half, creating an overwhelming lightshow. It caught on the wood that lay scattered around, ignited the floor, crept up the wall and swung across the curtains – fire, the great consumer, the great equalizer.

And then before anyone could react, or run, or pray, Sam threw the first bottles into the flames.

It went off like a grenade, a deafening crash that sent everyone diving for cover. Sam ducked into the safety of the hall behind me, but I started running, throwing my shirt up over my face. I was behind the front desk before the first shots went off in the chaos.

Donald was there, dragging me behind a metal plate dented with bullets.

"Got any grenades left?" I asked. "Bullets? Have you seen Thompson?"

It was a no on the bullets, and a yes on the grenades.

"Thompson?" I asked again.

"Back there. He got hit."

"How bad?"

"In the leg. Not sure." Donald coughed, his eyes watering. He seemed uninjured, but his skin was black with smoke. "Jesus, what did you throw?"

I pointed back the way I had come, "Sam is in the hall there, and Newton is in the back room. I need you to get there and help Sam with cover. I'll go after Thompson."

It was a mess in the conference room. The Russians had made their initial strike here, trying to demolish the wall, but it held. Part of the ceiling had come down on the table, collapsing it. Thompson was sitting in the corner, a rag tied around his leg, barely awake.

I went straight to him, appalled by his condition. He had a rag tied around his leg, but he was hemorrhaging blood. He seemed too weak to stop it himself. He was sitting in a pool of it, streaked all over from where he had tried to move, to stand. His dusky skin was pale. When I was close enough, he grasped my arm, like he was afraid I was going to leave him.

"I have to hurt you to make you better. Squeeze me as hard as you need to." I told him, drawing my knife and cutting off the bottom of his pants leg. I spun it into a strip and wrapped it around his thigh. I took the flashlight from his belt, tied both ends of the cloth to it, and then twisted. Thompson cried out as the tourniquet tightened. His hand was a vice around my arm.

I hauled him upright, bearing most of his weight, shaking him to try and wake him up. Thompson limped along beside me. I let him lean in the doorway, staring across the burning lobby.

Sam was there. He had his eyes on us.

It seemed the enemy was pushing, trying to get inside the hotel.

If they managed to claim a foothold inside, it was over.

"Sam! Now!"

Thompson and I took cover in the doorframe as another bomb was slung from the shadows toward the combatants. But they were smarter this time. One of them saw it coming and shot it before it rolled close enough to them. It went off with an ear-ringing bang and produced a white cloud that quickly dispersed, fueling the flames and doing little else.

"Another!" I shouted.

"Fire in the hole!" came the response.

His aim was better this time. He threw it low, so it skittered across the ground and rolled through the flames that the attackers were trying to cross. It exploded when it touched the heat, creating a fireball that sent them running for cover. I grabbed Thompson and crossed the lobby, pulling my shirt up over my mouth, but taking big breaths of the stuff as we passed.

Donald met us and grabbed Thompson, dragging him into the back room. Sam was already there, tending to Newton. He spoke to Donald, "Just got confirmation – Black Hawk 15 incoming."

Thompson groaned as he was let down. He was more aware than ever, gradually regaining some of his color. "Is that Marcy? God, I could use a pretty face right now. You know, she could have been a movie star, if she wasn't such a damn good pilot."

I stayed at the door, looking out into the hall. Something was wrong. I could see the edge of a door – a door that had not been open before. It was the closet, where we had stashed Honeywell and his bodyguard. It really was over, then.

"They got him," I said.

Sam joined me, blood smeared on his forehead, "Slippery son of a bitch."

But as we stood there, there was movement behind the counter. _Honeywell_. He was crawling behind the flaming desk, trying to get closer to his allies.

I ran. Sam ran behind me.

Gunfire erupted.

Sam and I hit the ground as the walls were shredded. I started dragging myself across the rubble, determine to get my hands on Honeywell no matter the cost. Sam grabbed me by the leg and jerked me backward, shouting, "Hey! It's not worth it!"

But it _was_ worth it. The SEALs were safe and there was nothing standing between me and completing my mission – or strangling Honeywell to death like I had that agent in the hall. I would drag his body back home one way or the other.

I kicked, trying to hit Sam in the face and force him to let me go, but he caught my foot and continued dragging me toward him.

"I can't leave him! Let go!"

Bullets whistled over our heads. Donald threw a grenade and the building trembled.

Honeywell was peeking out at me from behind the front desk, that smug look on his face again. He had lied. It was not unexpected, but it still pissed me off.

Sam locked his arms around my legs. "Oh, no you don't!"

But there was no way for Sam to understand.

I was not in the hotel, not dragging myself across a ruined floor. I was in Mshauri, walking through a line of people who reached out to touch my uniform. I was looking at their eyes, their wasting bodies. I was picking through the remains of their homes, their bones, their lives. I was in Somalia, listening to Ford talk about dust. I was hearing him laugh in basic training. I was seeing him die. I was on the phone with my mother trying to come up with something nice to say when all I felt inside was rage and pain.

I was the person Larry had made me, and more. I was his anger, his ruthlessness, but with the capacity to _feel_ what I had done. I was the conscious villain.

If he had let me go in that moment, I would have gotten my hands on Honeywell and killed him.

But he held on, stubbornly, and another explosion went off.

It fueled the fire and sent debris flying, striking the advancing attackers, sending Honeywell back into hiding, and whacking Sam with a heavy piece of concrete. He rolled sideways, his arm flopping around, nearly lying in the flames.

I was there on the ground between Honeywell and Sam.

I could have scrambled up and gotten behind the desk while everyone was distracted. I could have taken that split second to break his neck or drag him back into the hall as a hostage and hold him there until rescue came. But then I would have to leave Sam. I would have to leave him behind.

It was not even a choice.

It was my moment.

 _People matter._

I forced myself upright and grabbed Sam, hauling him to his feet. He was dazed, but once he was up, he was running. I was right behind him. The bullets started up again as our enemies recovered. I sped up, shielding his back with mine – and a bullet hit me right in the ribs.

The pain was so sudden and overwhelming that my body locked up. I hit the ground. Sam grabbed the back of my shirt and dragged me to safety.

We sat there, the five of us.

Sam dug the bullet out of my vest with his special knife – the one he had won in a poker game. I rolled onto my back and let my vest lay open, so my chest could expand without searing pain. Thompson redid the bandage on his leg and fashioned a makeshift sling for Sam – his left shoulder was dislocated, and he had a gash on his shoulder blade. Donald stood watch in the doorway, occasionally firing into the lobby, rolling the last grenade around in his hand.

We sat there, the five of us, trying to come to terms with the sudden violence we had just been involved in. It was a lot for the mind to process, a lot for the body to forgive.

"I guess I owe you one," Sam said.

I dragged myself up against the wall beside him. "No, we're even now."

"You're alright, Mike. Mind if I call you Mike?"

I shrugged, and winced again.

"Ouch. Gotta watch those gestures, friend."

We all waited there, the five of us, until it became four.

Donald dragged Newton to the corner and placed a jacket over him. It got quiet in the hotel. Honeywell had to be gone by now, and the army that had come to extract him was gone with him. I wondered how he could be so important to them, after so long in the US – but that got me wondering what he had been doing with his time here.

Marcy MacDonald showed up with half a dozen guys on a Black Hawk helicopter. Our team sat around while they sorted the bodies and took photos of their faces – so that the boys back home could figure out who they were, and who had sent them. More soldiers arrived by caravan and Newton was loaded into a camouflage jeep, wrapped up in an American flag.

Soon, we were headed to the nearest US army base for medical treatment and debriefing. I fielded a call from Tom Card and had to tell him my mission had failed. He sounded disappointed.

Sam sat beside me on the plane and put two mini bottles of vodka in front of me.

"In honor of our enemy."

I reached out and fingered one of the bottles.

"Listen, having you on wasn't so bad."

"Is this the part where we have a heart-to-heart?" I wondered dryly. I was tired, everything ached, and I had failed my mission. I wasn't in the mood for chit chat.

Sam smiled despite my tone. He opened one of the bottles and drank it down. "No, this is the part where I say it was a pleasure working with you, brother." He clinked his bottle to mine, and then sat back in his chair, sighing. "May we never do anything like that again."

I toyed with the vodka, and then finally opened the cap and took a sip. It burned in my mouth. "I think if we meet again, it should be paperwork related. Pencil-pushing stuff."

"Right, right," Sam said, and then smiled.


	29. The Polish Problem

**The Polish Problem**

 **May of 1992.**

 **Sanok, Poland.**

I made my first trip to Poland in May of 1992, my third mission without another spook to keep me in line, and the second time I had been called in to liaison for a Navy SEAL.

Sam was waiting for me at the airport in Warsaw. He gave me a hearty slap on the shoulder and took my suitcase. "Nice tan. Where have you been?" He dragged me toward a side exit, where a sleek black car was waiting for us. It even had a driver. "Welcome to Poland, by the way," he slapped me again, probably leaving a mark this time.

We rode south from Warsaw.

"Was there an airport closer to this place?" I complained, peeking out the window as the first hour rolled to a close.

Sam was busy discussing local politics with the driver, who disagreed with him about the death penalty. "Hold on, Mike," he said, putting up his hand and addressing the driver, "You mean to tell me you think justice means doing the same thing to them that they did to those people? Buddy, an eye for an eye makes the whole world blind."

I groaned, "Poland will abolish the death penalty soon."

"Kowalski has promised-" the driver began.

"Who is this guy? International sway has been toward abolishing it for years." I had discussed this point to death with Larry. "Not to mention Polish crime rates are a joke. No one has been executed in this country in the last, what, three years? Four years? And no one ever will be again."

He huffed and focused on the road, which was a somewhat blank stretch of blacktop.

Sam smiled to himself like he had won something. "What was it you said earlier, Mike?"

"I said there had to be a closer airport."

"Well, there was. But your guys insisted you come in via Warsaw. You know how it is."

Poland was beautiful. It was an almost unbroken plain from north to south, from the Baltic Sea to the Carpathian Mountains. Our destination was in the shadow of those mountains, in the southeast, in a town with barely thirty thousand people. It would be another four hours before we arrived. Plenty of time to get appraised on the mission.

"Garret here is with the Embassy, so he can hear this," Sam said before he began. "But real quick before I start, where were you? I just want some tanning advice, man."

I smiled. I had been in Portugal hunting a rogue asset – cornering him in an alley, painting the walls with his insides, and framing it as some kind of suicide. It had only been four days since I sat in my bathtub in a shitty border down, purged of every good thing Sam had made me feel. But his carefree tone made me smile, and that was enough.

"Someplace sunny."

"Just like you, taking vacations when there's work to be done," he laughed. "I asked for you personally, you know."

"I was told." I had not seen him since Bolivia and had not expected him to follow through on our talk about working together again. But here we were, like only a day had passed and not months. "I heard there was a kidnapping."

"Well, yes and no. Kidnapping attempt with injury." He took a folder from a briefcase on the floor and handed it over. "Here. Harrison Belcher, US diplomat to Switzerland, of all places. He was in Poland vacationing with his family – his Swiss wife, Elena, his sixteen-year-old son, er, Luca, and their five-year-old daughter Mia."

I flipped through the folder, finding a few photos of a happy family, and then some grim shots of a badly beaten woman. "Is this the wife?"

Sam nodded grimly. "Some goons attacked their hotel room and left Elena in critical condition. She's in the hospital now under armed guard. The family is at a safe house nearby pending transportation to the US embassy."

I stared at the photo, a bit shocked by the brutality. "No chance this was random?"

"What do you think? Belcher doesn't have a lot of money, not much prestige. His position is barely even important. But this… how could it not be targeted? Some shady people have been clocked around the hospital these last few hours."

"So, extract him," I said.

"Yeah, well, problem is, the boys in the suits wanna know what brought this on. Belcher may be low on the totem pole, but he still has access to some serious intel."

"You think he's a traitor?"

Sam shrugged, his dark eyes going past me out the window. "I wanna know who put that nice lady in the hospital, and give them a piece of my mind."

"I thought you were against the death penalty, Sam."

"I am." He took the folder back and closed it, stowing it carefully back in his briefcase. "I am, trust me on that. But I believe in justice – justice for that poor woman, and for her family, who had to watch that happen. I want to see him put in prison."

I appreciated his simple approach to justice.

"Well, that I can help with," I said.

"That's the spirit. I could do it alone, of course, but you know how they always want a spook on for all this diplomatic stuff. I thought it might as well be one we already trust."

He smiled, and I smiled, letting myself forget the last few months. I was not a shadow in the streets of Portugal anymore. I could pretend we had only just left Bolivia, that I had been here the whole time, being this better person that Sam thought I was. It was a welcome break from the real world, the cruel world, the world that Larry had made for me.

We arrived midday at a safehouse near the middle of town. It looked innocuous from the outside, just another fabulously built structure in a town that seemed as old as all of Europe, but there were obvious signs of occupation on the inside. First, the staff was gone. Donald was seated at the reception desk, spinning in his chair. He came to attention when we walked in.

"Watch it Sam, you picked up a spook."

Sam smiled, but it was a grim sort of expression. "How is everyone?"

"Same. Quiet up there. No news?"

"No. We're gonna go up and talk to them, see if Mike gets anything out of it."

Donald saluted us halfheartedly, going back to spinning, "Good luck."

It was dull and quiet upstairs, where the family had been hidden away. Harrison Belcher was an average man all around, but he was so nervous he was wringing his hands together. His son seemed distracted. His daughter sat at the table, coloring, but when we arrived, she crawled into her brother's lap. I hated scenes like this, scenes of loss, the faces of grief.

"Mr. Axe, please-" Belcher began.

"Call me Sam," Sam interrupted. "And I already told you, it's not safe for you out there. Elena is being looked after. She's safe."

Belcher threw up his arms, frustrated, "I don't understand why this is happening. We were supposed to be on vacation. Can you send us home now?"

"Not until we know why you were targeted," I cut in.

Harrison Belcher glared at me, finally noticing me standing there, "And who are you?"

"I'm here to help keep your family safe," I responded dryly, not bothered by his tone. He had probably never experienced fear or helplessness like this before, and he was doing his best to retain his strength. "Can you sit down?"

He considered the chair, and then groaned and sank into it like it was a tall order.

I sat across from him on the couch, ignoring the curious kids staring at me. "Mr. Belcher, I have to ask you a few things. Sam might have already gone over this, but I have to hear it for myself." I waited. He seemed ready to listen. "Do you know of anyone who might have a reason to hurt you or your family?"

"No. Why would they?"

"No enemies?"

"Enemies," he scoffed. "Who has _enemies_?"

I smiled, "Lots of people. What does your wife do?"

"She's a stay at home mom, to Mia," Belcher said, with a reflexive look at his daughter.

"Do you know of anyone who would want to hurt her?"

"No!"

I looked at the kids, Luca, who stared back at me curiously, and Mia, who looked carefully away. "Do you guys know why someone would want to hurt your parents?"

Luca shook his head immediately, "N-No."

Mia said nothing.

"This is ridiculous." Belcher stood, wringing his hands again. If he kept it up, he was going to give himself wrinkles.

It didn't seem like any of them knew why this had happened to them, or they were all very good liars. I pulled Sam into the other room.

"We should go talk to the wife."

"I'll call and see if she's up."

The hospital was not far, but they took several strange routes to shake any potential tails. Elena was under armed guard, lying in a bed with half her face beaten in. Her eye turned to them when they entered, but she seemed unwilling to move the rest of her body.

"Elena," Sam said, in his gentlest voice. He went to her good side and put his hand on hers, "Remember me? Sam? I brought my friend Mike with me. We just want to ask you a few questions. Do you think maybe you can talk now?"

I went over to stand by him, finding that the photos of this beating did not do it justice. Someone had taken their fury out on this poor woman.

I asked her all the standard questions, tried to wring any useful details out of her story, but most of what she remembered was pain and fear. She asked about her kids, about her husband. Sam comforted her while I hung out in the doorway, looking up and down the halls, wondering if the person who had done this to her was lurking nearby.

"See what I mean? Someone really had it out for them," Sam said, joining me.

"There has to be a reason." I took the lead as we left. "Tell me the story again."

"Elena opens the door, asks who they are, and gets the first hit. Belcher came in, saw what was going on, called for help. They tried to take him out of the room but he resisted. Luckily the police were downstairs for some kind of parking dispute and they spooked them off."

"So, Belcher knew he was about to be taken?"

"That's what he says."

"Not very professional." We loaded into the car, and took a few more laps around the city. "The family was vulnerable. They could have taken Belcher any number of ways, in any number of places. Why the hotel? Why did they attack the wife?"

Sam shrugged. "Are those questions rhetorical?"

"Anger, Sam. This was rage. What they did to her was unnecessary and a waste of time. So maybe we're looking for amateurs."

"Amateurs who came to Poland to kidnap the US ambassador to Switzerland?"

I pulled into the parking lot of the safe house, staying in the car a moment after it was off. Sam was right. It seemed like all we had to go on were a few disjointed pieces. If they were smart, whoever did this would be out of the country by now, making a new plan. We had no hope of catching them. But something was bugging me. Something seemed off, and so I wasn't willing to give up on this mission yet.

"I see that brain of yours working," Sam said, cocking one of his eyebrows, "You in the mood to share?"

"You'll know when I come up with something. Let's sit on the family until that happens."


	30. Dust in the Wind

**Dust in the Wind.**

 **May of 1992.**

 **Sanok, Poland.**

We sat around as night fell. Sam insisted I join them in a game of cards. He said I looked tense and asked again where I had been since we last saw each other – but more seriously this time. It was a drastic change for me, going from hunting someone through the streets to the curious world of diplomatic espionage. I had a hard time transitioning from one environment to the other. I was on edge, waiting for something to happen when the night would probably pass quietly.

I occupied my mind, then, with this third unknown element in the room. Thompson. I knew a good deal about Sam, but his direct supervisor was something of a mystery.

He was in his late thirties, at the most, with dusky skin and dark hair, wrinkles around his blue eyes. It had only been a few months since I last saw him, but the man had aged _years_. It had to be from losing Newton. I had witnessed grief before, but never so profound, never so close to me. It made me wonder if Sam felt the same pain, only hid it under his carefree mask. If he did, he was a hell of a lot stronger than I gave him credit for. And if what Thompson felt on the inside was any reflection of how he looked on the outside, it was a wonder he was still functional.

I felt compelled to say something.

"Sorry I…" I began, trailing off, wondering what I had wanted to say. Thomson's eyes flickered up to me, then back to his hand. "I wanted to come to the funeral, but they already had orders for me to ship off."

Thompson snorted and took his turn, laying a card down. "You barely knew him."

"But I was there when he died."

"So?"

"So, that means something to me."

"It was snowing, and all the kids were snotty," Sam cut in, taking his turn. "Be thankful you missed it. You know, Newton never believed in funerals, anyway. He said it was like taking your money and just throwing it all in the ground, and for what?"

He was met with silence.

"For a show, is all," Sam finished to himself.

I took my turn, folding the cards nervously in my hands. I was not new to grief, but usually the people I grieved were disconnected from me. I felt for them because it was in my nature, not because I cared for people who cared for them. I could leave their home, their country, and try to forget I knew them – the people of Mshauri, the girl in the yellow dress, the asset in an alleyway in Portugal – but it was different this time. Newton barely spoke a word to me, but I saw his ruined face, saw Sam holding him, watched them drape a jacket over his lifeless body. I had seen the cycle of his life and never completed the cycle of his death.

Those kinds of things were impossible to explain, and probably impossible to understand for normal people. Larry always said that spies saw the world in a unique way, a strange way, that we could not feel the same about loss because we walked in and out of the lives of others. We met so many people, killed so many people, that life lost its meaning.

But I was here with Sam and Thompson again, with Donald downstairs manning the door, with the memory of someone lost. Larry was right. I didn't know the right way to talk about this.

"I met this girl in Boca once," Sam started, when the silence had gone on too long, "Who had hair down to her hips, and even when she was topless, her hair just-"

"Oh, please, not that story again," Thompson said, with a small smile on his lips. It was like Sam had dragged a smile out of a corpse. I had never met someone who could bring such brightness to the lives of others – and I suddenly wondered if I had looked this morose the first time we met.

Sam said, "What? Mike hasn't heard it yet! Mike, let me tell you about this girl. She was-"

A creak behind us brought on silence.

It was not a sinister sound in itself, but a little chill crept down my spine when Sam said, "Hey, sweetie, what is it? What's wrong?"

Sam got up. I turned. Mia was standing there in a nightgown, holding a pillow in her arms, her eyes wide and soft. For a brief, startling moment, I saw my little brother Nate hovering in my doorway, coming to complain that he was cold.

"Mia?" Sam said, when the girl said nothing. He crouched near her, giving her space, but his hand hovered between them, "What is it?"

I checked the room on the left, where the kids slept, and found the first bed jumbled up with a few stuffed animals on the floor. But the second bed was empty, and still made up.

So, it was not so different from Portugal.

I yanked my gun out of my waistband and went to the window, which was open to the elements. It must have been the chill that woke the kid. "Luca?" I said, tugging on a rope tied snugly to the edge of the radiator. It went out the window and halfway down the building, stopping abruptly ten feet above the ground. It was hard to tell in the shadows, but I thought I saw the imprint of a body down below, and footprints running off over the snowy lawn.

"Kid bolted," I announced as I rejoined the others. Harrison Belcher was already up, holding his daughter and looking absolutely bewildered.

"What? What do you mean?"

I glanced at Sam, who was frowning thoughtfully. "I mean Luca climbed out the window."

"We're on the second story!"

"He had a rope. Why would your son-?"

"Someone must have taken him! We have to find him! What are you all doing just staring at me?"

"No one came into this room," I said. "He tied the rope around the radiator and climbed down. I only saw one set of footprints on the ground." He tried to interrupt, but I talked over him, "Have you been here before? Is he familiar with any places in this country? Where would he go?"

"No, no, last time we stayed we were further north. Why would he-?"

Thompson had been on the phone since the moment I said the boy was gone. Sam was equipping his weapons and zipping up his hefty winter coat. "He knows how dangerous it is out there," I said, tucking my gun back in and strapping into a bulletproof vest. "He must know something."

"Or he went for a surprise visit to his mom," Sam offered.

"No sign of him at the hospital, the mother is asleep," Thompson cut in, hanging up the phone. "I'm calling Donald up to sit on these two and doing a sweep of the house. You two track down the boy." He tossed a satellite phone to Sam. "Constant contact. Keep me in the loop."

Only a few minutes had passed since we discovered the boy was gone. Sam and I took the stairs down to the first level and walked the outside of the hotel, to the open window and the dangling rope. It looked like he had misjudged the distance and fallen off of it. A few blood drops were buried under a light topping of snow.

"Is that blood?" Sam crouched beside me, exhaling a big cloud of steam. It was a chilly night, a terrible time to go wandering around outside. It was early May, and probably the last real snowfall of the season – and it picked a hell of a night.

I examined the rope, "He hurt his hands climbing down."

We followed the prints. I jogged on foot and Sam circled the block in his rental, until we met a few blocks over. Luca had switched from yards and roads to a sidewalk. Sam drove slowly and I hung my head out the window, pulling a toboggan tight over my ears and letting my flashlight roll over the prints. I was looking for any other feet, anyone following him, any signs of a struggle.

Luca had walked right out of town, switching to the side of a quiet road. Sam and I said nothing, but each odd turn we made had us meeting eyes, questioning what this kid was doing.

"He left his coat back at the house," Sam commented, several miles out from Sanok. "He hurt his hands on the rope. Probably shivering like crazy."

"Something is motivating him."

"Let me in on your idea, 'cause I know you have one."

"Luca knows something," I repeated.

"But what? I mean, the kid wouldn't want his own mother to get beat up."

"How do you know?"

"I just know." Sam gestured at the side of the road. "And he left an obvious trail. Kid that age knows he leaves footprints in the snow. If he was involved and trying to escape, he would have covered his tracks."

We slipped into silence.

Luca had walked to the next town over, nearly six miles away. His tracks began to meander and double back, but eventually we found him milling around at a small, closed petrol station.

I was out of the car first, crossing the parking lot on a warpath.

Luca saw me and his eyes bulged. He had his hands in his pockets and his face was cherry red from the dry, cold wind. His lips were cracked. "What are you doing? Go away!"

He was throwing up red flags left and right.

"Come on, we're going back to your father," I reached for him, he dodged me.

Sam arrived. "Whoa, whoa. Come on. We can talk about this when we're some place secure. And warm. Warm and secure."

"No. You have to leave!" Luca looked around anxiously, gripping the straps of his backpack. He was a small kid for his age, long blonde hair, blue eyes like his dad. He had pinkish rope burn on the insides of both of his palms, and as his hands closed, he winced.

I put my hands up, afraid the kid was gonna bolt, and I was going to have to chase him through the snow. "Luca, did you have something to do with all of this?"

Luca made a sound like a distressed animal.

"If you're involved, you have to tell me. I can't help you if you don't talk to me." I kept my hands up, and the gesture let me get closer to him. He was trembling from head to toe, wearing a T-shirt from the mild daytime weather. "Did you have something to do with this?"

He looked up and down the road again and said, almost in a whisper, "You have to leave. Please, just go away."

I was starting to respond to his nervousness. He was like a trapped animal, waiting for a predator to come and scoop him up. If he had some kind of plan, if he was meeting someone at this gas station, then the clock was ticking. We were in the path of the predator. We were all in danger.

And I also saw that Sam was right. Luca may have known more than he said, but he was not some criminal mastermind fleeing the scene. He was a terrified kid.

"Do you know why they hurt your mom, Luca?"

"They were coming for me!" Luca cried.

He let out a sob and tried to muffle it in his elbow. Sam blew a puff of steam into the air, looking anxiously up and down the road.

I channeled everything I had into my gentle voice, trying to treat him like a kid and not a criminal. It was hard, again, to switch from who I was in Portugal to who I wanted to be here. I had to think like Sam, to remember that people mattered.

"Luca, listen to me. Listen." I finally got my hands on his shoulders. His skin was frigid. I guided him back to the car and pressed him into the back seat, crouching in front of him. "Luca, I'm here to help you, and to help your family, okay? I only have one job here. Just one job. I know you're scared, I know you're worried about your mom, but you have to trust me. Let me help you."

He wiped his face, sniffling, the warmth of the car bringing some fight back into him. But he averted his eyes, clutching his backpack straps again. A bead of blood ran down his forearm.

"You lied to me when we met," I said. "So, let's start over." I held out my hand. "My name is Michael." I debated, and then added. "I'm a spy."

Sam cleared his throat behind me.

Luca took my hand tentatively, "Like in the movies? Like James Bond?"

"Sort of. I was sent here to help your family. But I need you to help me, first. I need to know what you know."

Finally, he said, "I never wanted this to happen…"

"Start from the beginning."

"Uh, Mike? We're sitting ducks out here," Sam said.

"Hold on. Tell me, Luca. Quickly."

His story was one I had heard before, in different context. He took files from his father's computer and advertised them online, teasing that he could get more for the right price. He found a chatroom with people willing to buy, and they bid on it. He swore he was just going to scam them out of their money – and he did. He scammed them out of ten thousand dollars.

But when he failed to produce the files, he started getting threats and, frightened, shut the whole thing down. He left the money sitting in a bank account, untouched, and told no one.

"What on Earth would possess you to do something so stupid?" Sam roared. "Selling government secrets on the internet! Come on, kid, use your noggin'!"

Luca flinched at his tone, "I was just… I…"

I pinched the bridge of my nose, containing my frustration. "Why did you come out here?"

"It was them, the buyers. I kept getting threats but I just… I never thought they would find us. I sent them a message to come here, to finish it, so they would stay away from my family."

Luca seemed quite brave them. He had a mettle that most kids did not. He met my eyes, even though he sat shivering in the back of a car, at a gas station in the middle of a foreign country.

"Do you know where they were from? Names?"

"No. It was all anonymous."

I took a deep breath, "Sacrificing yourself won't save your family, Luca. It'll just give them a bargaining chip. What they want is the information you promised them."

"I have it." Luca pulled his backpack off and yanked out a clunky computer. It seemed to have its own power source. "My dad bought me this. I saved all the chats here, and… the stuff I took."

Sam looked over my shoulder. " _We_ don't even get those. Do you know how to use that?"

I took the computer. "Sam, get Luca back to the safehouse."

Sam didn't budge, "What're you planning?"

"We might only have one chance to meet with these people." I opened the computer and booted it up, passing it to Luca to type in the password. "Luca, did you respond to any of their threats?"

"No, I tried to ignore them."

"Good. Is there anything else I should know?"

"I just… I'm sorry."

He seemed genuine. I could forget the cold, the stinging in my face, the prospect of facing these buyers on my own, to show some empathy for this kid.

"If you really are sorry, you'll go back to the safehouse with Sam, and you'll stay there. I can only do my job if I know that you and your dad and sister are safe."

Luca nodded.

"I have to stay here," I said to Sam as I closed Luca into the backseat. "Once the kid is safe, come back here, park a quarter mile that way, and come through the forest. You have your rifle, right?"

"Yeah, but I don't want to leave you here alone. We don't know who these guys are."

"Exactly. Both of us might be a threat to them. If I stay, alone, I can talk to them."

"Or get kidnapped or blown to pieces."

"Hazard of the job."

Sam groaned, "What is it with you spooks and trying to get killed?"

"Sam, we don't have time to argue."

He left, and I could feel Luca watching me as the car rolled out of sight. I leaned into the wall, starting to shiver myself, and sifted through the laptop computer. Luca had saved a load of information, dates and times, sometimes names, offers of money and other goods. Most of the official things he had stolen were useless without context. He had chatted with an anonymous buyer, giving them bits and pieces of information and pretending he had more.

Whoever wanted the information thought they were buying it from Belcher himself. It had to be what attracted them to Poland, and what led them to the hotel.

But what could a diplomat know that would be worth all this trouble and violence?


	31. Billy Fields

**Billy Fields.**

 **May of 1992.**

 **Sanok, Poland.**

Spies have been using the 'third man' approach since the dawn of civilization. It was featured prominently in the book Card lent me – _How to be a Bad Man_ – and it sprung to mind the moment I groped around for an answer to this problem. The objective is to make your adversaries believe there is another party involved, preferably one you know they would fear or hate – fear so they will leave you alone and hate so they might agree to work with you to deal with this greater foe. It was unwise to pair it with a cold approach, unaware as I was about their motivations and behaviors, but the kid had already agreed to this meeting.

It was now or never.

I stashed the laptop and did a little prepping, bloodying my cheeks with a sharp stone, rubbing my eyes to give the impression of exhaustion.

And I waited.

Half an hour later, a car rolled into the petrol station.

It was a dark Sudan with flashing rims and tinted windows. I leaned against a pillar, my right hand clutching my side, feigning injury and disinterest, but minding every detail. Two men exited the vehicle, both of middling height and build, with distinct European features. They wore winter gear over street clothes and heavy black boots.

When they were ten feet away, they stopped.

"You are not Harrison Belcher," one said, in a heavy Ukrainian accent. He had a small smile on his lips, as if that statement amused him.

I had worked with and against Ukrainians before, and I preferred neither. I had stepped into their world when Larry and I were in eastern Europe and found them to be relentless and brutal – and when I fought them, I matched them.

But I had a few advantages, because I knew how they were trained, and I knew they hated nothing more than ignorant Americans. I adopted the smug southern drawl of my father, making it rushed and stressed to sell the third man.

"No, that I am not. William Fields – you can call me Billy. Pleased to meet you."

"Where is Harrison Belcher?" the man asked.

Larry liked to say that soldiers from this region were trained on how to think. Boys were remade in the image of their commanders, obedient and dangerous, running with a single ideal that they were always willing to die for. But these were not soldiers. It was not their place to ask the questions, but to apprehend me and bring me to someone tailored for the job. Neither wore a scrap of clothing in common, even boots of different brands, and their guns were holstered haphazardly on their belt loops, each on a different hip.

It was a private party, then, who was interested in buying US intelligence, and not a spy working under government orders. It was someone who would pay mercenaries – _goons_ – to do their dirty work, confident it would never come back to them no matter how messy it got.

I put my hands up, fingers spread, "I can see you two are in a hurry and, believe me, so am I, but this is not the conversation I signed up for. I was looking for a bigger fish, if you catch my meaning. You know, someone a little higher up on the totem pole, bigger pockets, maybe."

"Where is Belcher?" the second man growled, his accent regionally distinct from the first. He was fingering the gun on his hip.

"Well, for all intents and purposes, I'm Belcher. Now, before you drill me full of holes, listen up. I sent you all those messages. I took the information and put it up to sell. But you _idiots_ – sorry, temper, temper – I mean, you… go-getters… you jumped the gun and came running out here to Poland and brought violence into this."

For a moment, I thought the second one might shoot me. He gripped his gun through its holster and gnashed his teeth. But the first one spoke sharply to him in Russian, " _Wait_. He is American."

"So, let me shoot this idiot," the second one responded.

I interrupted their little exchange, "I can see you have a single-minded purpose here. Should have assumed as much. Let me say it again for you, loud and clear. You've been talking to _me_. I took the information and put it up to bid." I let my voice raise, let the slightest sign of irritation show, "You really messed it up for me, boys. We were puttin' together a bigger deal when you showed up out here and attacked an _ambassador_!" I framed my face, the abrasions, with one hand. "Oh, boy, was he pissed. But forgive and forget, he says. I came out here to make a deal with your boss. I don't want to be rude, but I get paid too much to talk to two knuckle-dragging baboons!"

One of them stepped forward, drawing his gun.

A bullet sparked off the pavement in front of him. We all flinched and scanned the dark woods. It had to be Sam, but I saw no sign of him.

"I wanna see the big man with the big wallet," I said. "I can give him what he wants. I just want your boss and my boss to be friends, get some gears turning. So, you get in touch with your boss and tell him Billy Fields wants a word – and that word is gonna make us all very happy men. You have my email address. I look forward to hearing from you."

It seemed, again, that the second one wanted to shoot me, but the first one was clearly in charge. He cast a look into the woods, thinking, and then said gruffly, "We will be in touch."

When the car departed, I retrieved the laptop and waited.

Sam came from the woods, a rifle strung over his back and his whole front covered in snow. He was smiling. "We really gave them the old one-two, eh, Mikey?"

"Thanks, Sam," I said.

"What is all this?" he asked, gesturing to my face. "How did that happen? He never touched you."

"Negotiation tactic. It gives the impression that others are involved." I crouched and rubbed snow over my face, clearing the blood and leaving the scrapes pleasantly numb. "It never pays to shoot the messenger. I implied my ruthless boss was behind it."

"So, this crazy boss of yours, is he also played by you?"

"No. I was hoping you would do the honors."

Sam snorted, but seemed pleased by the offer. "Jeez, Mike. I left my acting pants at home, but I got your back. Who am I, Garret Wroth, diamond salesman and international spy? Or, maybe, Gentry Smith, mysterious and strikingly handsome string-puller with money to burn?"

"We'll work on the name."

"What's the plan here? We gonna get this guy to show, then arrest him? 'Cause I can tell you right now we have no evidence and no jurisdiction. Unless you plan on wearing a wire."

"No. I think their boss is in the States. It looks like Luca met them in a US chat room. He hired those guys, probably anonymously, to light a flame under Harrison Belcher and get him to come through on his deal. Did you hear him? He stopped his buddy from shooting me because I was American. If we can get them to meet us in the US, we can nail them for something."

"Just something?"

"Depends on what he wanted the information for."

"Either way, stealing classified information is espionage."

"Yeah, but we need to know what he wanted. It could be bigger. He could be planning a terrorist attack or trying to destabilize an election. We just found a thread here, Sam."

"Or we just found a guy looking to make a quick buck."

"Or that. But we have to be sure."

"I get it. I do." Sam cranked up the heat in the car and we headed back, taking several back roads and going out of the way to avoid being followed. "What if this guy decides to cut his losses and kill everyone involved?"

"We have to hope he wants the information enough to risk it." I put my hands over the heat vents, just realizing I was shivering. I had been standing in the snow for a while. "If we can find the boss, it'll be nice to see someone put in jail for once."

"Where do you usually see people get put?" Sam asked grimly, and then hurriedly added. "I didn't mean to imply that you… well, maybe I did… but I-"

"It's okay." His curiosity was overwhelming. He was prodding me for information, and I finally decided to give him some. "When I… capture someone, they get taken away and thrown in some black site, some hole that never sees the light of day. Sometimes they flip them for information and let them go. Sometimes… they spend the rest of their life in the dark."

Or, that was how I saw black prisons. I had never been to one, and never wanted to visit. Larry had told me horror stories of torture and isolation, of prisoners falling into depressions so profound that they went catatonic in just weeks. He liked to say that prison was a vacation compared to being a spy, and that being a spy was a walk in the park compared to being in a black site.

When I brought people in, I tried not to think about it.

Sam pulled into the safehouse, clearing his throat. His voice was softer now, sensing how tense I had become at the subject. "Do you think it's better that way?"

He was asking one of the fundamental questions of law and order, one of the biggest tests of morality. I already knew where he would stand. He believed in the justice system, in reasonable punishments for crimes. He did not support torture and he seemed to be an opponent of the death sentence in most cases – now he was asking me if I had the same views.

Sam wanted to know who I was, in a nutshell.

I had put a lot of thought into questions of morality, but never articulated them. Larry never wanted to hear about it and Card was always focused on the mission. It was all about completion to them.

And apart from the moral center of the question, it felt like there was a challenge there – are you some kind of agent of darkness? Are you really making the world a better place? Is what you do worth the cost to the people involved?

I responded carefully, "I think if everything happens in the dark, justice can be perverted. A few people decide what's right and what's wrong. But there are also monsters in the world – I've met a few, I've seen what they do."

"People, Mike. They're still people. Monsters exist in stories."

He was wrong, but I shrugged it off, "It's not my choice, anyway."

"Yeah, but your opinion matters."

"Does it?" I left the car.

Sam called in their arrival, and then said, "It does to me."

I was suddenly defensive. Why did he want to know all this about me? It didn't change the mission. We were in different worlds when it came to law and order. I was trained specifically to work around it, to be the judge, jury, and executioner, and he took his orders from a command chain. We were fundamentally different. It was not a productive conversation.

"I'm not trying to jam you up here, Mike," Sam said as they walked up the stairs. "I was just making conversation. If you don't want to talk about it, it's fine."

He was a better liar than I thought. He might have made a good spy.


	32. The Trap

**The Trap.**

 **May of 1992.**

 **Sanok, Poland.**

"You know, I know what spies do and all, but I never saw it like that. I mean, sure, you lie to people, but you just made up a new accent on the spot – and you were cool as a cucumber the whole time. Is this even your natural accent? What do you really sound like, Mike?" Sam lowered his voice as they entered the safehouse, but the questions went on. "Did you have a plan going into that? Or were you just winging it? How often do you just wing stuff like that? Were you winging it the whole time we were in-?"

I cut in, "Sam, please."

He stopped with his hand on the doorknob, "Sorry."

I waited halfheartedly for him to open the door, but he just stood there, waiting.

"I use my natural accent. I leaned the southern one from my dad."

Sam cocked one bushy eyebrow, "So for this meeting, if I get to play the badass boss, I was thinking I can use this one I learned on Magnum P.I."

He dragged a smile out of me. "I'm gonna go ahead and veto that."

He opened the door to a wave of sound. Harrison Belcher was furious. He was pacing the living room, stopping every now and then to scream at his son. Luca sat on the couch, angry tears in his eyes, but when he tried to say something his father's voice drowned him out.

"What were you thinking?" Harrison roared.

"I-" Luca began.

"What could you possibly need money for?"

"You-"

"I never should have gotten you that computer. I never should have let you use the internet."

"You never-"

"How could you be so stupid? How could you do this to us?"

Luca jumped to his feet, finally making himself heard, "It was fun!"

Harrison wheeled on him, fumbling for words for a moment. A series of angry grunts and growls poured out, and then his brain caught up, "Your mother could die because of this! You put your sister in danger! You put us all in danger, for what, for a thrill? For the _fun_ of it?"

"Just shut up!" Luca yelled back. "Shut up!"

I looked at Sam, because there was nothing I wanted less than to get involved in a domestic problem. But it was decided for me when Harrison started toward his son. I stepped between them, putting my hand out as a barrier, and as a warning. If he tried to push through me, I was ready to disable him, US ambassador or not – and Sam must have seen that, because he put himself between us, grabbing Harrison by the shoulders.

"Hey, hey, can we all cool down here?" Sam said. "Luca is your son. He never meant for any of this to happen. I think you should take a time out before you do something you'll regret."

It was a standoff. We all stood there for several seconds, waiting to see if Harrison would try to bully his way past Sam. It would not go well for him if he tried. He might have realized that or realized how much of an ass he was making of himself, because he shrugged Sam off and headed for the back bedroom. When he was gone, his daughter crept over from the kitchen and sat on the couch behind Luca, watching them all with wide, glassy eyes.

Luca tried to leave now, and I caught him by the arm before he made it two steps. He tried to worm away, but the kid was scrawny. I tossed him onto the couch beside his sister.

It was another tense moment as Luca stared at me, deciding whether he would try again.

I lowered my voice, "You don't get to leave again."

Sam hovered behind me, maybe wondering if he should try to get between us.

Luca hastily wiped his tears away, his voice raspy from all the shouting, "You heard him. He doesn't want me here, anyway. Just let me go."

"Go where?" I demanded.

"Just somewhere else – anywhere but here!"

I sat on the coffee table across from him, unable to help drawing connections between us. He was sixteen, a year younger than I had been when I left home. It was strange looking at someone and seeing a child and imagining them where you had been. Was I ever this young? I was only twenty-five now, but it seemed like a lifetime ago that I was in his shoes.

"He never said he didn't want you here," I said. "But it doesn't matter. You don't get to walk out on your family again. I'll give you the first time, because you thought you were helping them, but this time you would be abandoning them to clean up the mess you made. Your dad is scared and angry and he doesn't know how to cope with it right now. So, you just have to suck it up. Leave all that hormonal, angsty, mad-at-the-world stuff at the door and man up, okay?"

Luca seemed uncertain, but he finally responded, "Okay."

"Okay." I stood up, looking between him and his sister. She was still staring at me, so I focused on the boy instead. "I'm gonna do what I can to keep your family safe and get those people off your backs, but I need you to stay here and stay quiet. I can't worry about you going rogue."

I was not a fan of family drama. I could gladly go the rest of my life never worrying about it again. But it did feel good to get Harrison away from Luca, and to talk him down off of his proverbial ledge. People appreciate honesty. I stayed with them for ten more minutes, until Harrison returned from his exile a calm, but somewhat defeated man. He sat in the chair and wrapped his young daughter in his arms, occasionally looking up at Luca, but saying nothing.

Deep into the night, an email finally came. Sam and I were in the middle of a card game with Thompson when the computer dinged. It was from the buyer.

Sam read over my shoulder, "He wants to meet. Good."

"St. Anne's Fountain," Thompson read, frowning. "Belcher, you ever heard that name?"

Harrison was listening, and he jumped when his name was said. He came over to them, "Uh, yeah. Famous place, about an hour from here. We visit it every now and then. My wife likes the way it lights up at night. Is that where they want to meet?"

It requested a meeting at four in the morning. It was a quick turnaround, too quick for their boss to really be there. It was definitely some kind of ambush. But I kept my thoughts to myself.

"We have, what, an hour before we have to leave?" Sam said.

I sent a short response saying I would be there, and then shut the computer. Sam and Thompson followed me into the living room. I said, "I'll go alone."

"Like hell you will," Sam snapped. "If this trap were any more obvious, there would be a 'free birdseed' sign out front with an anvil hanging over it!"

"Sam, this is my job. It's why I'm here." I strapped into a bulletproof vest, zipping my winter jacket over it. "And they've already shown us they want the information more than they want me, or Harrison Belcher, dead. They won't stop going after Belcher and his family until we get to the bottom of this – and if someone is looking to steal US intelligence, it's my duty to stop them."

"I'd like to see the orders telling you to dangle yourself like bait!" Sam said.

"That's what makes us different. I don't need orders."

Thompson intervened, "We can at least back you up from a distance. If something goes wrong, shots go off, we can get to you."

It was a stretch, but I gave my consent.

Sam glared at the computer, still sitting on the table. "I don't trust all this internet stuff. Mike, are you sure-?"

"I am." I looked at the computer, too, wondering if what I was seeing was a temporary change, or the start of something much bigger. "It makes my job a lot easier in some ways, and harder in others. Anyone can just go on AOL and get an account, send messages to vulnerable links in the government – like Luca. Anyone can offer them money, and then if they turn down the bribe or call the police, there's no chance of catching them. It's anonymous."

Sam crossed his arms, still uneasy.

"Sam, this may be our only chance to stop this. We can't let them slip away."

"Right, right. I just wish you had a better plan."

He was oddly protective, or perhaps I just wasn't used to having a team. When I was on a mission with Larry, whatever strange affection he had for me was one-sided, and tenuous. It always felt like he could turn his back on me at any moment. But this was just one of the many ways that Sam was different. He really _cared_ that this mission was dangerous.

I looked away from him, "I'll tell them my boss is in the US. I want to move this to the States."

When I was strapped in and ready to leave, Luca came over, looking like a completely different kid than the one I had defused earlier. He was vulnerable.

"Your going to meet them, huh?" he asked, eyeing the collar of my vest under my jacket.

I nodded, "Yeah."

"I'm sorry. This is all my fault."

"Don't be sorry. Be better."

Luca looked up sharply, curiously, "Were you in the military? I mean, before…"

"I was." I tapped my hip reflexively, where my weapon would be stashed, but I wasn't bringing it to this mission. Suddenly I realized this kid was making me nervous. I cleared my throat, "I, uh, joined when I was seventeen, so not much older than you."

"I just wanted to go home, you know."

"Hmm?"

"I wanted the money to buy a plane ticket back home." Luca glanced back, making sure his father was not listening. "We've been here for two years. I miss my friends, the rest of our family. I mean, I know it makes my mom happy, being here – she was born here, you know – but I wasn't!"

I wished I knew what to say to him.

"Sorry kid. Life sucks sometimes."

We left on the hour. Sam and I rode together, and the other SEALS took a car behind us. Sam was quieter than usual, his face dark, and as the ride went on, he sunk deeper into his chair. I was awake and alert, maybe a little manic at this point for lack of sleep. I went over possible outcomes in my head, mapping out my moves, deciding what I would say. I threw together a fake life story for my new persona, gave him a family, gave him a purpose. He was just in it for the money, but he was intensely loyal. He would not give up his boss, he would not turn on his friends.

Billy Fields made another appearance when we stopped. I sat in the car with Sam five miles away for another ten minutes, while the time ticked away, and the meeting grew closer.

"Well, good luck." Sam turned toward me and held out his hand, shaking mine. "No matter what happens out there, I've got your back."

"I know you do, Sam."

He left the car, and I drove the last five miles.

It was four. I stopped by a divider, leaving the car running, and approached the fountain. It was deserted. I took a casual look around, and then sat on its edge, watching the road I thought they might approach on. Five minutes later, a car appeared, headlights growing steadily brighter. It stopped too far away, and four doors opened.

Spies are supposed to have the best instincts. We can smell traps. When a room feels wrong, we leave. But anyone can sense a bad situation. What really sets us apart is the ability to swallow the panic, to pretend that we have a situation under control even when something unexpected happens. We can let ourselves be captured, if it better serves our missions.

I stood up as the men approached, aware that there were guns on me, eyes on me, from beyond the car. If this was a kill mission, it would have only taken two guys.

"Mr. Fields, you have your wish," the closest man said in Russian.

When they were close enough, they lunged. I didn't fight back, but I was still thrown to the ground, my head cracked against the pavement. My hands were bound, and I was lifted, carried smoothly away, tossed into the trunk. I lay on my side in darkness, listening. Someone was giving directions and the car was in motion. We were leaving, but the destination was unclear.


	33. The Captive

**The Captive.**

 **May of 1992.**

 **Somewhere in the USA.**

Spies always have one scary thought in the back of our minds. One day a mission could go south, and we could be taken, imprisoned, or killed. We could be deemed unrecoverable, with no search teams out to find us, no task forces organizing our escape. We are the assets that get swept under the rug, and our families and friends are left in the dark, and they bury empty caskets.

I was thinking about it the whole time the bag was on my head. I was moved from place to place, a car to a truck, a truck to a plane, a tarmac to the trunk of a car, my hands bound, clasped together at the palm, my legs tied at the thighs and the ankles – and the whole time I was wondering what they would say to my mother and Nathan. Would they pretend I had gone AWOL, or that I was gravely injured, or that I was on deep cover missions that allowed no contact? Would they bother to keep up a ruse until people stopped asking? I pictured a jeep riding up to her house, parking on the curb, and two men getting out to present her with a folded flag. I pretended there would be bagpipes and soldiers saluting, a coffin with the flag draped across it.

But spies did not get military funerals.

I was on the edge of that dream when the bag finally came off.

I was in a basement with cinderblock walls and dirty concrete floors. It had one window, covered in thick curtains, and the whole place smelled of curing meats. One man stood in front of me, holding the bag, staring at me intently. He had a squarish head and dark eyes, and he was not dressed for the cold. He wore a cotton shirt, showing off gang tattoos on his arms.

He said, in a strong Russian accent, "I am Sonny. What am I calling you?"

"Billy," I responded, my voice breaking around it.

Sonny winced. "Ooh. Long days with no water. I can get you some. But I want to talk first." He approached, popping the blade out on a knife and motioning for me to turn. "We have chairs, so we can sit like civilized people."

I turned, holding my breath while he cut the bindings on my wrists. Someone dragged a chair up and I sat down, rubbing the bright red line where the zip ties had been eating into my skin.

"I know someone who was promised some information, and he is very impatient, this man." Sonny dragged a chair up and sat facing me, folding up his knife and tucking it into his suit pocket. "I have agreed to get this information for my acquaintance by any means necessary. You must understand that you have the information he needs, and I need to take it from you."

His boss was probably some billionaire CEO, looking to cut corners and increase profits. He probably wanted the information to jump ahead on foreign deals, to circumvent the competition and get the inside scoop. People would do crazy things for money, like trying to buy government secrets on the internet and then sending mercenaries when the deal fell through. It was not the ten thousand dollars wasted that this guy was mad about, it was the information.

But which pieces of it were important to him?

"If your acquaintance wants information, you have the right guy," I admitted, "But I'm just a middleman. I connect my boss with new clients. I dangle information out there like a worm on a hook and wait for somebody with big enough balls to bite."

Sonny smiled pleasantly and beckoned behind him. One of his faceless soldiers wheeled a cart up to him, equipped with all kinds of unsettling tools.

"No, no, my friend, I am told you have the information I need. Where are the documents?"

I kept my eyes on him while he ran his finger over the tools, making his selection. "I have a lot of documents. Do you want to be more specific, friend?"

"I am searching for a trade deal, C6-78S."

I was right, then. His boss was looking to invest big time using insider information. He wanted to know ahead of time what the new trade deal entailed. It was not the slimiest of moves and it would mean little to me or to the government if he got the information, but his tactics had already pissed me off. He sent goons all the way to Poland to attack that family, to hospitalize Elena Belcher, and now he had ordered me dragged to some basement, to be tortured. His cruelty was astounding.

"Sounds familiar," I responded, practicing my best mask as he pulled a copper rod off of the table, "But I have so much more to offer your acquaintance than a few million on insider trading. I have access to information that could triple his wealth, easily, and run his competition out of town."

Sonny stood up, motioning, and suddenly there were two guys on me. One held me up, the other had my leg. I knew what was coming right away.

He hit me on the foot with the copper rod.

It was like an electric shock running up my spine. I shut my eyes and gritted my teeth as the bar came again, and again, lighting up the nerves from my toes to my hip.

"You are a very stubborn man," Sonny commented between swings. He repeated his question after each hit, "Where is the document C6-78S?"

Spies are not immune to torture. We feel pain just like everyone else. But we train specifically to keep secrets, to misdirect. Larry always said the best spies know how to keep their enemies running around in circles all day, trying to verify all the bogus information they spit out during torture sessions. He also said a good spy would kill himself long before he let himself be broken.

But I had no intention of dying today.

We were an hour in when my pleading finally got through to him.

"I can get you what you want! I can get you the information! Call your boss! Just call him!"

Sonny set the metal rod down and the goons dropped me in the chair. I held my tender foot up, trying to focus through the pain. It would stop in a few hours, leaving behind no marks, no scars, but until then it was going to feel like it was on fire.

"I can see that this is getting us nowhere," he said, sighing. "You are so insistent that you can broker this deal. Why would you put yourself in danger this way?"

"I have a job to do, and my boss is like yours – any means necessary."

Sonny nodded to himself. "I will call him and make your offer."

"I want to meet stateside," I said. "I'm so tired of this European crap."

"Well, lucky for you we are already there." Sonny left the room.

I sat quietly, waiting, wondering. I knew now that we were in the United States, a relief, because this basement could have been anywhere. I had allies here, not so much in Russia.

Sonny returned ten minutes later.

"You are in luck, my friend. He wants to meet with you in New York – maybe to kill you himself, but we can only hope that is not the case."

"I need to put in a call to my boss, then, so he can get ready to head north."

Sonny watched me, waiting, thinking, and then he nodded. "I will be listening."

I limped out of the room, into another, smaller room with a phone on the wall. I called Sam.

He picked up on the second ring, in a calm monotone.

"Hello."

I admired his caution. "Hey, boss, sorry I stepped outta the loop there for a bit."

He paused, and then, "Did you do what I asked?"

"I set up the meet, all is well. I think we're headed there now. I'll see you soon stateside."

Sonny stepped beside me and hung the phone up. "Good, now we go."

I was tied up again, despite my request to sit in the front of the vehicle instead of the trunk. We took several bumpy roads, and then slid onto smooth highway. I lay in the darkness, looking into the bag on my head, awake for hours before the darkness lulled me into sleep again.


	34. The Boss

**The Boss.**

 **May of 1992.**

 **New York City, USA.**

Randolph Meyer was a businessman.

If I had come into this meeting knowing nothing about him, that would be the first thing I recognized. He sat, posture relaxed, in a high-backed leather chair, bathed in the light of the windows completely wreathing his penthouse office. He squared his jaw when he looked at me, attempting disinterest, but there was no hiding that money-hungry stare.

But I did know who he was, and because of that, I knew where I was. We were in New York City, in a skyscraper owned by the man sitting in front of me. He was a tire tycoon – or that was what the public thought he was. Larry always said the best businessmen have a public job and a private job, and most of their money comes from the private job. His private job was the precious metal trade in some very unstable countries. His dealings with Iran had turned a magnifying glass his way. What I had said to Sam about pulling a thread was right on the money.

"I heard you wanted to meet with me," Randolph Meyer said, sipping from a glass of water, his eyes never leaving me. He was pale, with balding red hair, and sharp eyes. He reminded me of a cheap comic book villain.

I was exactly where I wanted to be, at last.

"I'm glad to finally get that chance," I said, slipping effortlessly into my father's accent. I was in a chair in front of him, untied for once, but with goons standing behind me. "Billy Fields."

"Do you know who I am?" Meyers asked.

"I do have the pleasure. I had a feeling, once I saw what kind of resources you were throwin' into this endeavor. I understand you're interested in acquiring some information."

Meyers smiled, and narrowed his eyes, "I paid the asking price already, and now I find myself out of ten thousand dollars, and with no more knowledge than when I started."

"I understand that. I understand that you're frustrated. But what you're charging for is kid stuff. Once my acquaintance knew what you were after, he wanted to make extra sure you were getting everything you wanted. What we put up was just a sampler."

"I want what I paid for."

"I know that. I get that. But you settled for a scramble of information. What I'm offering you is hand-picked documents. If you start a relationship with my acquaintance, you'll have everything you want to know at the drop of a hat. No need to go through all these unpleasant channels. Chat rooms are just unbecoming of a man of your… status."

Meyers sighed, "You talk a lot."

"I have a job to do here, Sir, and I do it well. I connect people. Let me make this connection."

"I want what I paid for," Meyers repeated. "And I will go through you to get it."

He gave the signal, and one of his guys grabbed my arm. I dropped the passive act and vaulted out of my seat, twisting and getting both hands on his forearm. Before he could slip away, I pulled him to me and jerked his arm backward against my chest, breaking it at the elbow.

I let him hit the ground, cradling his arm, and sat back down.

Meyers waited, having sat still through the exchange.

"I hate using violence, Sir, I really do, but I was sent to make this deal, and my boss does not enjoy failure and he does not enjoy delays. I really do need us to hammer this out. If you want the information that I have, then we can go into business. If not, I'll refund your money and you can look elsewhere for what you need. It really is that simple."

I had only done a little negotiating in my time as a spy, but I had watched Larry seemingly miraculously avoid violence by talking people out of and into deals. It was one of the most potent weapons in my arsenal – my big mouth.

Meyers sort of smiled, seeming irritated, and intrigued. He wrote a telephone number and some other digits – including C6-78S, which Sonny had asked me about – on a scrap of paper and handed it to me. "You look like shit. Go find your boss and tell him we can do business. Call me when you're ready to talk again."

He let me go.

I was escorted to the lobby, but I walked freely out the front door. It was sunny outside, pleasantly warm, with a cool breeze coming down the road. His building was in a business district, not far from Park Ave. I had managed to keep my limping to myself in the building, but the moment I hit the sidewalk my feet burned like I was walking on hot coals. It was a grueling walk to the nearest payphone, even worse because I had to shake the two guys following me. I wove between buildings, went into a few venues and snuck out, and went way out of my way to make sure that no one saw me slip into the subway.

I called collect, using a number I had been forced to memorize, and a special assignment code that would take me to a message machine only one man could access.

I left a short message.

"Found a thread leading to Randolph Meyers. Going to stay at the Marriot Essex House."

Tom Card would be the one to get the message, and before long a new file would open up at the CIA questioning the involvement of one Randolph Meyers in the assault of a US diplomat. When he called me back – if he called me back – I would have to tell him how all of this had started. I doubted the kid would face charges, but his father was also culpable for letting the information be leaked. I could only hope the government was more interested in investigating Meyer than prosecuting a sixteen-year-old for treason.

It was a long walk to the Marriot from the Meyer Tower, longer because it was warm, and I was starving and thirsty, and I had barely slept in days. I dragged myself along, drinking from a public bathroom sink, combing my hair down with my fingers. I had chosen a hotel with a view of Central Park, right on the fringe of the business district. Larry always said that spies were supposed to live like kings wherever they stayed, to be close to the rich and powerful.

I was running on empty when I made it to the lobby. Everyone inside was dressed nicely and I got some strange looks as I carried myself, tattered, dressed for snow, to the front desk. I said my name and the receptionist fell over herself to call someone over.

"Oh, yes, of course, Mr. Westen, I'll have someone get your bags right away."

"No bags, just me, for now."

One of the only luxuries that spies enjoy is the rare instances where their travel and accommodations are supposed to be high class. Some spies spend their lives in the gutter, gathering intel from the poorest people in the poorest countries, doing their best to blend in as just another downtrodden local, but others spend their time in 5-star hotels, elite restaurants, and black-tie parties, bumping elbows with the richest people in the world.

I was on the right end of the spectrum right now.

I found a fresh black suit hanging in my room and a message waiting for me on the answering machine. It was cryptic, a few short phrases that meant something to me and to no one else. It told me that my message was received, and help was on the way.

Larry showed up four hours later.

I was lying across the bed, drifting in and out of a nap, when he knocked. I knew it would be him, but I still jumped up and grabbed the nearest heavy object before I checked. He was smirking into the eyehole, wearing his own slate gray suit.

"Hey, kid." He strolled inside, drawing a Glock from his jacket and handing it to me. "Heard you were in a bind. Brought you a present."

"What are you doing here?" I asked before I'd even shut the door.

He snorted, "I was invited to find you when the grunts lost contact – and then you dropped a hell of a name. So, now I'm here. You know, I left a margherita in Boca for this."

I joined him at the table.

"I need to know what you know," Larry said.

"What about the SEAL team?"

"On the way as we speak. Go on, give me the rundown."

I had given reports to Larry before, but I had never been interrogated by him. He wanted to know every minute detail, from the moment I arrived in Poland to the moment I opened the door for him. He was particularly interested in the Belcher family. I reluctantly told him what part Luca played in this whole situation.

"He was just being a dumb kid."

"Yeah, a dumb kid selling government secrets."

"He didn't know the gravity-"

"Ignorance of the law, kid. No excuses." Larry crossed his arms. "Keep your bleeding heart off of this, please. Our focus is on Meyer right now. Some smaller fish will deal with the kid."

"Deal with him?"

Larry groaned, leaning back in his chair to snatch a tiny bottle of scotch from the mini-fridge built into the dresser. "Keep going, before I start crying."

I did not shy away from details of my interrogation in the basement.

"You were in Philadelphia, as far as we could tell." Larry downed his little bottle in one gulp and grabbed another. "A Russian person of interest booked a black flight at a tiny airport outside of Berlin, bound for South Jersey Regional. The CIA was informed the travelers appeared to have 'human cargo,' and when the flight landed, there was a team there to capture footage. They caught you landing and being put into a vehicle headed toward Philly. I was there, poking around, when you got a call out to your handler."

It was naïve of me to be grateful that he had gone to such lengths to try and find me. In the back of my mind I recalled all the things that I knew about Larry that he could not risk getting out. He was just protecting himself.

"I was just being a good friend and mentor, until you namedropped Meyer. Now I'm officially part of this mission."

"What mission is it, exactly?"

"Well, you managed to divert this whole thing over to the US. Belcher and his family were put into protective custody for the time being but the threat over there seems to be resolved. Now we're charged with finding out exactly what Meyer wants to know and why."

"What do we know about him?"

"I know a whole hell of a lot." Larry grabbed a third bottle, considered it, and toyed with it instead of drinking. "This'll be my third mission involving Meyer. Years ago, he was into precious metals in Iran – though you probably know about that one. He was also on the short list of people believed to be responsible for the sabotage of a diamond mine in Angola – a mine owned by his main competitors, Orson Affiliates. One of his subsidiaries was briefly investigated for funding terrorist operations in South Africa, but that mission was called before I got to the bottom of it."

"Why?"

"Big money, kid."

"The government took hush money from Meyer?"

Larry shrugged. "I do what they tell me to do. Right now, they want to know what he wants with government secrets. And you have an in with him."

He had a laptop computer with him. He set it up on the table and showed me how to flip through a few documents.

"We can request documents here. I asked for C6-78S."

It turned out to be a trade deal between the US government and South Africa, somewhat related to the sale and transfer of precious metals obtained from 'government sanctioned' mining operations. It was hundreds of pages long.

"Whatever Meyer wants out of this, we can find it here. Get to reading, kid."


End file.
